


The Tongue is the Key to the Heart (舌為心竅)

by yunyu



Series: Clouds and Rain universe [9]
Category: Shin Sangokumusou | Dynasty Warriors
Genre: Alternate History, Chinese Mythology & Folklore, Courtship, Demisexuality, F/M, Implied/Referenced Underage Prostitution, Local duke will not stop murdering people who disrespect his wife, More at eleven, Nobility, Politics, Possessive Behavior, Prostitution, Recovery, Revenge, Torture
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-09
Updated: 2019-04-25
Packaged: 2020-01-06 12:55:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 5
Words: 23,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18388847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yunyu/pseuds/yunyu
Summary: “I wish I could kill everyone who’s ever hurt you.”She let out a little huff of a laugh, but her smile faded as she looked at him. “You mean that seriously, don’t you, my lord.”Warnings: the rape warning is for non-explicit discussion of past sex trafficking of and forced sex work by the heroine; the actual pairing is entirely consensual. There is graphic and potentially disturbing violence on page.This work is a sequel to Clouds and Rain and contains spoilers for that work.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> 舌為心竅 "tongue / serves as / heart / key" is a saying from Chinese medicine and its meaning is that looking at a patient's tongue is the way to see the health of their physical heart. I am choosing to reinterpret it in a semi-metaphorical sense. Only semi, however, because literal tongues are still going to be very much involved.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Er Ge, which Guan Suo calls Guan Xing, means "second eldest big brother".
> 
> Xiao Suo means Little Suo but in Chinese this nickname is not as patronizing and infantilizing as that sounds.

“My father says you are a bad man, my lord,” said Li Meng’an sombrely.

Guan Xing had his face and body turned towards her as she sat next to him on a bench in the Luoyang imperial gardens, his posture relaxed, but she was sitting perfectly straight with her hands delicately folded in her lap, staring forward at the ducks in the pond. “What do you think, my lady?”

“I think he is probably right.”

Guan Xing chuckled despite himself, remembering how incredulous he had been back in Tong Gate when Lord Fa Zheng said he was believable as a villain. He no longer doubted that he did, in fact, give off that aura. “Yet you continue to meet me?”

“Having met with openly bad men in the past,” she said, “good men apparently will never again want to meet me. A covertly bad man, like my lord, is as good as I can hope for.”

“My lady, were you like this… before?” He studied her beautiful profile, how the hair that escaped its braid curled in an interesting way.

She did turn away from the ducks at that. “Like what? Cold? Cynical? Bitter?”

He nodded.

“No.” She bit her lip and looked back at the ducks again. “I was very open and pleasant, I think. Seems so long ago now.” She sighed. “Why do you ask?”

“I wonder sometimes if I would have liked that you as much as I like the you that you are now.”

She gripped her own hands tightly. “If we’re being so blunt with our questions, may I ask some of my own, my lord?”

“Certainly.”

But she didn’t say anything.

After a minute or so, he prompted gently, “I said you may, my lady.”

“I know you did, my lord,” she said, “but I don’t know what I can ask that I would trust the answer.”

“I know that I will tell the truth,” he said, “but if you cannot believe that, you should know that you can learn as much from lies as from truths.”

“That sounds like the sort of thing you’d say,” she muttered, almost so quietly that he couldn’t hear, and then said in a louder voice, “My lord, is your pursuit of me some sort of… challenge, or wager… between you and Lord Fa Zheng?”

“Not a wager,” he answered, “but I cannot say that it is not a challenge.”

She was visibly startled, turning to look at him.

“You didn’t think I’d admit it, right?” He smiled at her. “I don’t think it’s the kind of challenge you might be imagining… although I can’t say that my lord’s intentions were in any way righteous. My lord has been seeking to… make me decide who I am. Your family’s troubles happened to come to our attention in a way that made good material for my lord to test me. I had told Lord Fa Zheng, when I first learned of your father’s sufferings, that we ought to help him. So my lord threw it in my face publicly that there _was_ something I could do to alleviate those sufferings, but would I be willing to do it? That, of course, was marrying you, my lady. But my lord entirely disregarded how this process would affect you and your father. He doesn’t care at all. That is why I said it is not righteous.”

“Do _you_ care?”

“Before I even met my lady, I did,” he answered. “I have tried to spare you and your family embarrassment as I can.”

“You could have just let the matter drop, yet you pursue me,” she said.

“I knew that my lord did have a point,” he said. “I had been bold in declaring that others should take risks and undergo hardships and dangers to help Master Li Dian at very little likelihood of actual success. Lord Fa Zheng… wanted to see if I would be willing to… take a wife of much lower status than I could reasonably expect to obtain.” Guan Xing took a breath, searching for how to phrase it truthfully without being more insulting than necessary. “Lord Fa Zheng also knew… my views on how I… thought a woman should act if captured… There are… personal reasons in my past… why I found chastity and… the surrender of same… to be a particularly sensitive topic…”

She was silent as she continued to look at him, her expression outwardly unchanged.

He smiled at her a little, hoping that he had not just irrevocably spiked his own guns. “My lady, I gave you permission to ask me hard questions, yet you don’t push me on that?”

She looked back at the pond. “You turn the little good I thought of you on its head… I had thought, though you were a bad man, you had a… compassion for… women like me… because of your sister’s capture… but it seems like your concern was all for my father… it seems like what you’re implying is…”

This time he was the silent one.

At last she continued. “…that you’re one of those who think I should have killed myself.”

“When my father was alive, that is what I thought, and called righteousness,” he said. “But I wasn’t thinking of individual women. I was not considering the interactions of people, the worth of people, the futures of people… it was not… humane. My lord mocked me by saying that I believed that a man can serve his enemy with his body for years and remain honourable in his heart, yet a woman could have her honour taken by force in a single event. That changed me.”

She turned back to him. “Then what do you think now, my lord?”

“Lady Li, may I hold your hand?”

She took a sharp, ragged breath, and held her hand out to him slowly.

Guan Xing took her hand very gently with his left and laid his right hand over it. “My lady, since I have met you and spoken with you, you have changed me a great deal. You ask me what I think. I still don’t know what I think. I only know that I must marry you and none other.”

Her cheeks were colouring. “Such passionate words,” she said faintly. “What inspires them?”

“You willingly subjected yourself to the basest demands of your captors, just so that your brother would live.”

She looked down at his hands. “I never told you that.”

“After your father rejected my interest the first time, we fought and finished the campaign in the west and I let the matter lie at that time. When we returned to Luoyang, I was formally given my father’s title, and I asked your father if he would discuss a marriage tie with me again. He again said no. So I decided to investigate the matter myself. I found out you had been ransomed from a brothel in Puyang, so I went there. I found out that you never actually worked at that brothel. You told your new madam you were related to Li Dian, that talk was that many former Wei officers had joined Shu; was he one of them, you dared to hope? She did not force you to see customers while she inquired from Luoyang if anyone wished to ransom you; though she thought you were liars, she had pity for you. She said she thought you had been treated roughly and needed a rest in any case. She seemed kind for one in her profession. So I let her live.”

Meng’an breathed in sharply, but he was continuing on.

“She told me she had bought you from a trader called Ge Jun. Ge Jun told me he had bought you from a man in Qinghe called Jin Fang. I bribed Ge Jun to take me there.”

“You went that far into Hebei?”

“I had to see for myself,” he said. “Ge Jun took me to Qinghe and I told him to wait for me as I might need more from him. Jin Fang hardly required a bribe, he was the kind who talks because he loves his own voice. I told him I had just bought the two of you for myself and wanted more like you. He said he wanted more like you as well, but ladies of your calibre were hard to come by. You and your mother were a very good deal, despite the extra expense of the child, because any slightest threat towards the child made you willing to do anything. And yet you never seemed to break or despair either, which he found particularly funny.”

She made a noise of disgust.

“Don’t worry, I kill him at the end.” He said this very calmly, as it was to him a matter of no more significance that having killed a fly. “To continue. I gave him more money, for wine to share. He didn’t notice I didn’t really drink. Jin Fang got very graphic about his memories of you—what he had done to you himself, and the things he had you do for clients. He lamented the short term need for ready money that had caused him to have to sell you, and said he would have to demand that Old Yao, as he called him, come to see him first the next time he did a raid that netted ‘high class girls’. I learned how to find Old Yao. That was when I decided I had enough and killed him, and recollected my money. I rejoined Ge Jun. Since I no longer needed him, I killed him immediately, and took that bribe back as well.”

The hand in his grasp trembled, but did not pull back.

“Finding Old Yao and his gang was easy. They were not subtle. Killing them, on the other hand, took some planning, since I was on my own. I had to watch them three nights before I saw a good enough opportunity. I caught their watchman dozing and that was the end.” He shrugged. “I was able to kill all but four before one’s death made enough noise to wake the rest. Two of those were too sleep dazed to present much trouble. The last two were able to fight properly but they didn’t take me longer either. Then I came back to Luoyang and met with your father. I presented him the heads of Old Yao, Jin Fang, and Ge Jun, and I asked again if I could be permitted to discuss marriage to you.”

“My father never mentioned this,” she said.

“I believe it made your father like me even less,” said Guan Xing, “but I think he realized that if I was willing to go that far, he did not want to see how much farther I might go if still denied.”

The hand trembled again. “That gang… my younger sister, she was…”

She began to weep, and then to sob and wail. She allowed him to gather her onto his chest, where she clutched at the fabric of his clothing as her body shook with her grief.

“I’m glad, I’m glad you killed them all,” she finally managed to choke out, when the worst of her outburst was over and she was mostly still in his arms. “They were evil, more evil than I could have imagined before that. Of everything, my sister was the worst. She died in so much pain and so afraid and they treated her body like garbage… I couldn’t do anything…”

“No, you couldn’t save her,” he said. “But you did save your brother, and ultimately you got all three of you to safety, bearing every hardship along the way. I have met many heroes, and you were as brave, strong, and selfless as any of them. That is the kind of woman I want as my wife. And as I have gotten to know you personally—your beauty, your intelligence, even your sarcasm… every single thing about you became something I realized I could not live without.”

For quite some time she remained still in his embrace, neither moving nor speaking. Finally she pulled back slightly, and he let her go instantly. Meng’an brought out a handkerchief from her sleeve, carefully wiped her face, and then steadied herself. “My lord, I have entertained your peculiar courtship up until now because it was, if nothing else, a break in the cold monotony of my days. I never imagined you were as sincere as this.”

“But you believe it now?”

She nodded.

“Then how will you answer me?”

“There is something you haven’t considered,” she said quietly, and looked him in the eyes. “My lord, I have been beaten in the abdomen and given poisons to drink. Do you realize that I may never be able to carry your child to term?”

He had not considered this, and his sharp mind whirled around the prospect. It was more than reasonable for her to ask; according to the marriage code, a wife that failed to bear a son could be divorced unilaterally.

 _I must give my father grandsons,_ he had told Lord Fa Zheng. That was what had started all of this..

It took him less time than he would have thought to answer. “I don’t care. I have a younger brother with a pregnant wife; he and his children can be my heirs, if that turns out to be the case.”

“You’re sure it would not kill your love for me? You wouldn’t take refuge in the law? You say I’m strong, but if I had to face that…”

“I swear. If you give yourself to me, I will never let you go.”

She did nothing for a moment, then held out her hand again, and he took it. “I suppose, if the world calls you a bad man, and me a bad woman, we are a good match.”

Guan Xing kissed her fingers. “Even if I am a bad man, I will make you a happy woman. I promise.”

———

“Father,” Lady Li said, “how do you feel about me marrying Lord Guan Xing now?”

Her father put the cup of tea he had been lifting to his lips back down, and looked at his daughter who was standing in the entrance to his study. “I feel the same. He’s dangerous, very dangerous, and he plays games with a notorious man. I don’t know what he finds attractive in the idea of marrying you, but I have some guesses and I don’t like any of them.”

“You think that maybe he wants a woman who can endure rough treatment,” she said, and when he closed his eyes, she said softly, “I’m sorry.”

“You’re apologizing to me? Meng’an…”

He had reopened his eyes and they had so much pain in them she had to bite the inside of her cheek to stop from apologizing again. The guilt her father felt was so vast, and she hated that her very attempts to ease it made it worse.

She walked over to him and wordlessly sat on his lap, as she had used to do when she was a little girl. He rested his chin on the top of her head and folded his arms over her, sighing.

“You owe nothing to anyone,” he said. “Is it that you think this marriage will benefit our clan, our family? That his connections to the emperor will protect us or restore our status? You’ve sacrificed far too much already. Please, just live quietly in our house… and your brother, I am sure, when he grows up, will make sure you’re cared for…”

“It’s not that,” she said, turning her head slightly so that her voice would not be muffled by his shoulder. “Father, why didn’t you tell me he had killed them?”

The hand that had been rubbing her back stopped, and after a moment, the voice said, “Because I was afraid _this_ would happen. He told you himself?” He made a noise of disgust.

“What’s wrong?” She sat up more so she could see his face. “Why shouldn’t he have told me?”

“He’s using your gratitude against you,” Li Dian said with heat. “This all accords with what I suspected of him. I thought he intended to keep that card in reserve and play it against you at a later date, but since you have rebuffed him so far, he’s playing it now.”

“I truly don’t think this is a game to him, father. And I don’t _feel_ gratitude to him, exactly… I mean I am glad that they are dead, but… I don’t know how to name it, but it isn’t gratitude.”

“Then why have you changed your mind?” he said, almost pleading. “What’s changed, Meng’an?”

“I thought that if he was not drawn by darker purposes, then he was motivated by compassion or pity, and I did not want to be married for such a reason. His killing them could have been out of compassion and pity as well, so it isn’t what changed my mind. It was…” Slowly, her face coloured, and she dropped her gaze down from her father’s eyes, feeling suddenly shy. “…he admires me.”

She felt awkward, and yet because it was such an innocent and ordinary awkwardness, the awkwardness of any girl discussing a lover with her father, it was pleasure far more than discomfort. A thousand times this, rather than all the pains and sorrows that had consumed their family lately.

“And you believe he is sincere?” she heard her father say. He sounded so tired. Her blush faded as the momentary illusion of ordinariness broke. It hurt to let it go.

She looked back up and met his eyes again. “I do believe him.”

“Did you tell him you were willing to marry him?”

“Yes.”

Li Dian closed his eyes a moment, then reopened them. “Then it doesn’t matter at this point whether I’m willing to let you go,” he said. “It’s your willingness he wants—I noticed that a long time ago. If he just wanted to force it through, he could have easily gone around me already. He is the emperor’s nephew. My consent is superfluous.”

“It does matter to me,” she said. “Father, please agree, when he comes to see you.”

“If you’re asking me to,” said Li Dian, “how can I possibly deny you?”

She laid her head back on his shoulder and they stayed like that for some time.

———

“If looks could kill, your future father-in-law would have had you dead before you crossed the threshold,” said Zhang Bao the evening after they had delivered the bride price together. They were unpacking Lady Li’s modest dowry. Ordinarily this would be mostly handled by servants, but Guan Xing indicated he would do it himself. His younger brother Guan Suo and his oath-cousin Zhang Bao had stuck around, although they were mostly sitting down and drinking wine while watching Guan Xing work. “What was that about?”

Guan Suo coughed, but Zhang Bao was not about to let himself be warned off from talking frankly to his best friend.

“Master Li Dian doesn’t approve of me,” Guan Xing said, inspecting a tea set and then reclosing its box. “I hope eventually he will relax.”

“Doesn’t approve of you? A duke? The emperor’s nephew? Any father in China would want you.”

“Master Li Dian values his daughter’s happiness above other considerations. I respect him for that.” Guan Xing unfolded a duvet and sniffed at it. “Ah, this is goose down, I think. That always makes me sneeze.”

“I’ll take it if you don’t want it, Er Ge,” Guan Suo cut in, and his brother nodded and began refolding it.

Zhang Bao stretched. “Hey, Anguo. You could still tell the servants to do all this, and we could do something fun.”

“Servants talk. Anyway, it’s better to know what you have in your own house. It’s good that you married a practical girl, Weiren,” Guan Xing said, addressing his friend Zhang Bao by his style name, Weiren (maintain benevolence), just as Zhang Bao had used his, Anguo (peaceful kingdom). “If you had to run your house yourself you’d be robbed blind.”

“Talk about what? Linens?”

“The size of the dowry, especially compared to the bride price I gave them. Don’t play dumb.”

It was a mild warning, but Zhang Bao disregarded it. “Why should that matter? Xiao Suo didn’t get any dowry at all, so you’ve got him beat no matter what.”

“Ai, you pick on me out of nowhere,” complained Guan Suo without any real offence. “I should have thrown rocks at you more often when we were children.”

Guan Xing laughed a little at them both, but made no response.

Zhang Bao pushed it again. “Why are you marrying this girl anyway?”

Guan Xing put the cushion he had been examining back into the chest, brushed his bangs out of his face, and turned slowly to Zhang Bao. He gave his friend an unnerving smile. “Because I’m in love with her, of course. What other possible reason?”

His gaze held Zhang Bao’s, and Zhang Bao found himself swallowing down his intended follow-up question of whether Guan Xing knew that Lady Li had not been ransomed from ordinary kidnappers but from a brothel. It would have been dumb to phrase it as a question anyway. Obviously Guan Xing knew. The real question was, why didn’t it bother him? Guan Xing had always despised any kind of prostitute.

When Zhang Bao didn’t say anything, Guan Xing made a short, satisfied sound, the same kind he made when he bested Zhang Bao in a spar, and went back to looking through the dowry.

That smarted. Despite Guan Suo giving him an _are you crazy?!_ look over his brother’s back, Zhang Bao reopened his mouth to say defensively, “Hey, I still wanted to marry Yinping despite everything, remember!”

“I fail to see the relevance?” Guan Xing said without looking up.

After Guan Xing’s younger sister Yinping’s capture, but before the truth of what had happened to her had become clear, Zhang Bao had told his friend that no matter what, he was going to marry her. Even if she had been violated, no matter by how many men, he didn’t care. At that time, Guan Xing had said that he appreciated his support but declared that it was not a possibility anyway because his sister would surely kill herself rather than be so dishonoured.

Guan Suo’s expression to Zhang Bao was as loud as his mouth was silent.

“What I mean is that I’m only asking about this stuff because you’re my friend! You’ve changed a lot lately, Anguo, and I’m concerned about you! It’s not like I’m judging—”

The trunk that contained the bedding closed with a snap. “Weiren.” Guan Xing’s voice was low but brimming with menace. “My future wife is a woman of good family, correctly raised, and unimpeachable in her personal virtue. There is no possible reason for concern, only for congratulations. Have you heard otherwise?”

Zhang Bao sighed, but he was a man of considerable personal courage himself. He was not going to let Guan Xing intimidate him into backing down. “I didn’t mean it like that. Come on, you know I’m not good with words like you are. Man, you can’t be this prickly about it! You’re acting as if you never said all those things you told me when Yinping was captured. How can you be angry at me when I’m not going one tenth as far? I’m on your side, and I really do hope you have a long and happy marriage with her! You’re on the brink of fighting me when I haven’t even said anything bad. How are you going to handle how other people react? You can’t control what people say!”

“True, I can’t control what people say,” Guan Xing agreed, still not moving. “I can only control what I do.” He finally turned his head, and gave Zhang Bao a more familiar smile. “I know you mean well. And you’re right, I was far more of an ass then than you are being now. But truly, Lady Li is the best woman I have ever met. I’m the lucky one. I know you’ve heard things. They don’t matter. Just forget about them, alright?”

Zhang Bao smiled back, relieved. “Alright.”

“There is one thing,” Guan Xing added mildly. “If you do hear people saying unpleasant things in the future, you’ll of course let me know if I need to correct anyone’s misapprehensions?”

“Uh, yeah man. Sure.”

Guan Xing’s smile widened. “Excellent.”

———

“Your brother’s really gone all out for this wedding,” Sanniang chattered at her husband. “Gosh, look at this food! And so many tables! Do you even know all these people?”

“No,” said Guan Suo, looking around the room. This wasn’t even the only banquet hall his brother had hired, and he was having food handed out to common people as well. “I don’t think my brother knows them either.”

“Almost makes me wish we had had a wedding.” She stuck her lower lip out and pouted for a moment, then brightened as the servers brought out yet another course of food. “Ooh, look at this!”

He heard a boisterous laugh, and glanced across the table. Zhang Fei had made the trip up from Chengdu to attend his nephew’s wedding banquet, and he and the emperor had been getting louder and louder as the banquet (and the wine) progressed. The empress was chatting with Zhang Fei’s wife Lady Xiahou and Zhang Bao’s wife Lady Lu about some sort of childrearing thing, from the words that weren’t drowned out by the men’s conversation. Zhang Bao himself wasn’t there; he was accompanying Guan Xing from table to table to greet the guests as a combination wine carrier (for the inevitable shots of congratulation) and guy to take the fall for being rude if necessary to move Guan Xing along to the next table.

“Saosao!” Sanniang sang at the new bride. Rather than the more common opaque red silk veil, Guan Xing had had a phoenix wedding crown made for her with a veil of red beads. Her magnificent gown had not only a phoenix but also a dragon with its four claws prominently displayed, making it clear that the woman who wore the dress was a member of the nobility. The beads rattled against each other as she turned. “Have a drink with me!”

“You don’t want to have too much, Sanniang,” Guan Suo cautioned quietly. “Think of the baby. Too much alcohol is no good.”

Lady Li’s beads rattled again as she lifted her head and looked past Sanniang.

“This is only my second cup, I promise! C’mon, I have to show my beautiful new sister-in-law my respect!”

“You make me like you more and more, Sanniang,” came Guan Xing’s voice from behind them, and the voice got louder. “Let’s all drink to my precious bride.”

———

He did not penetrate her until they had been married a full week.

The wedding night he merely said, “We’re both tired, let’s go to sleep,” when they were finally alone, and it was very reasonable.

The second night when she undressed, she did not put on her night clothes.

“Are you hot, my lady?” he said carefully.

She did not actually want to have sex, so if he didn’t want to either, she was not going to push it. She picked up her nightgown. “A little.”

“I’ll get a lighter blanket,” he said.

The third, fourth, and fifth night, she made no approach to him, and he made no approach to her.

The sixth night she decided it was time to talk about this frankly. “My lord, you haven’t touched me.”

It was a bold approach, perhaps. Guan Xing paused in the act of undressing and looked at her. She was sitting on their bed in only her _xieyi_. “I thought I would wait until you truly wanted to initiate it.”

“You may wait forever, in that case,” she said dryly, and was glad when he chuckled.

“I’ll wait as long as is necessary,” he said, resuming undressing.

“But you don’t _have_ to,” she said. “I knew what I was agreeing to, and I know how…” she faltered a little, but pressed on. “I know how to please a man. I can please you. I want to please you.”

He finished undressing. She had seen his nakedness briefly before, but this time he did not reach for night clothes. His face didn’t show much expression, but he still didn’t move.

She got up, making a guess that he was torn and deciding to try a gamble. “Let me show you.”

His eyes opened a bit wider as she approached, then widened dramatically as she knelt before him and placed her hands on his thighs. “My lady—”

She took his half-hard cock in her mouth and he gasped, then groaned, his hips shifting against her hands as she began to suck his cock.

“My lady—Meng’an, you don’t—oh—oh—”

Falling into routine, she relaxed her throat so she could take his cock all the way. In a detached way, she noticed that his hands were clenching and unclenching at his sides. Like he wanted to grab her head but was controlling himself from doing so.

Meng’an changed things up, teasing the head only with her tongue, running a single finger up and down the shaft while cupping his balls gently with the other hand. She looked up at Guan Xing’s face to see what he was thinking as she pressed her tongue to his slit and licked up his pre-cum. He had an expression now, alright. It was lust.

“Meng’an,” he said again, and then moaned as she took him all the way in again, keeping eye contact. “Meng’an, I can’t—I’m going to—”

She was surprised that he started to cum already, but she swallowed it down without gagging anyway, continuing to suck, enjoying, for the first time, the cries of almost painful ecstasy that this produced in a man. Then she let his cock slip from her mouth.

Suddenly, Meng’an felt sick. What the hell had she just done? She was supposed to be a _wife_ , not a whore. And she’d just… could he possibly still respect her after this?

“You…” Guan Xing said, out of breath still. “I…”

Meng’an put the back of her hand to her lips, still tasting him on her tongue. She felt like she was going to throw up.

“That was… thank you…”

His hands were on her arms now, gently urging her to stand up. When she did so, he gathered her into himself and laid down on the bed with her on top of him. With her head pressed against his chest, she could hear his heartbeat starting to slow back down.

“I wasn’t expecting… that,” he was saying. “That was… that was amazing… oh my God. Wow.”

She couldn’t help laughing, mostly from relief. The sick feeling was still there, but receding.

He pulled her up his body to kiss her, but he only softly brushed his lips against hers before saying, “Are you alright, my lady?”

She was a little startled. “I’m fine?”

“The way you laughed, your face…” His eyes were searching her intently. “Are you covering up something? Is it bad memories?”

Oh. She could understand why he would think that, and the real reason was hardly something she wanted to talk about either, but she might as well tell the truth. “No, I just… I suddenly got worried that you would… well… realize that I’m just a whore.”

“Don’t call yourself that,” he said, brushing her hair out of her face tenderly. “I don’t think of you that way, ever. What you just did doesn’t change that. Remember, I already know all about it. That time is over forever.”

“I just… what I just did… I know how to do that,” she said, “and if it pleases you…”

“Believe me, it pleased me,” he laughed a little, then looked a little shy. “It’s alright that I called you Meng’an?”

Oh. It was the first time he’d used her given name, now that she thought of it. Why wouldn’t he think it was alright? He was her husband.

“In my heart,” he continued caressing her face, “I have long thought of you that way.”

“Do you need my permission?” she whispered.

“I want to honour you, my lady, in whatever way I can.” His hand stilled on her cheek.

“Then honour me with the name in your heart,” she said, and kissed him long.


	2. Chapter 2

The day after Guan Xing’s wife sucked his cock the first time, he could barely concentrate all day.

He had considered himself a controlled individual. _Repressed,_ he heard Lord Fa Zheng’s mocking voice say in the back of his mind, and shook his head a little to clear it. No, but it wasn’t just control, was it; he had seen common soldiers, his friend and cousin Zhang Bao, and many others, lose their minds over the chance to get between a woman’s legs; and here he was, twenty-four years old, married, and a virgin. That didn’t happen just from control, and he couldn’t say he would have lacked opportunities had he tried for them.

 _The fact is, you didn’t really like women, did you?_ Lord Fa Zheng’s voice said in his mind. _You didn’t trust them, respect them, or even enjoy their company. No wonder it was impossible for you to make yourself vulnerable to them._

He wondered if it should bother him more that his master was now lecturing him _de novo_ within his own mind. _I loved Yinping,_ he told this inner master, and the inner master replied: _you loved her as a sexless child; you never thought of her as a woman until you realized she was willingly having sex, and it repulsed you._

_I loved my mother._

_Your mother died when you needed her most._ “Unfair,” he hissed aloud at himself. The real Lord Fa Zheng didn’t have access to all his darkest, most shameful feelings and memories like this.

“Did you say something?” the prime minister inquired, not turning his head from the map of Yong province that he was studying in preparation for the upcoming campaign to turn back the Xiongnu invasion.

“Just muttering to myself,” he said, and tried to concentrate again on the intelligence briefing he was reading.

“Go home to your bride,” Zhuge Liang said, and when Guan Xing, bristling, opened his mouth to object, he was disarmed by the smile the prime minister gave him when he turned his head to look at him. “That is not a punishment. I don’t really need you here, and you will be separated from her soon enough for this campaign. That is not a pain I have had to suffer very often, yet even the few times I have been separated from my wife fill me with compassion for you.” He gestured down at the map with his fan. “You already see what I intend, don’t you? Leave me to prepare the exact details of the plans. You’ll carry them out, I have no fear.”

Guan Xing bowed and went home, thinking and thinking.

He had admired Meng’an’s beauty, and he had understood that sex occurred in marriage, and he had, on occasion, even put his hand to himself… but he had not put the three together in precisely that way, somehow…

God, it was better than his hand…

Meng’an was at home, taking tea in their garden. “You’re home early, my lord. Is something wrong?”

“Can we speak in our room, my lady?”

She looked concerned, but he tried to tell her with his smile when he offered her his arm that there was nothing to worry about.

“I didn’t think it would be necessary to tell you,” he said without preamble when he had quietly shut the door, “but I feel like I should say… I’ve never had sex before.”

“Oh,” Meng’an said, with only mild surprise. “That explains it…”

A little self-conscious, he said, “Was it obvious?”

“I don’t know how to answer that without… bringing up things that you wish left behind.”

“I only wish them left behind as it benefits you,” he said quickly. “Never feel like you have to hide things from me.”

“A lot of men… so-called good men, even, that rarely otherwise came to a brothel… brought their sons for their first experiences,” she said, and gave her bitter smile. “Let them experiment with a woman who doesn’t matter, so that they can treat their wife correctly, I suppose.”

Zhang Bao, who otherwise didn’t frequent brothels, had once told him more or less the same thing, in an attempt to cajole him into going to one.

She shrugged. “But as far as johns went, they were among the best. Almost never violent or angry, and they orgasmed quickly. I got some jealousy from the other girls because I got picked for them by far the most. But I hardly ever got picked for the lonelies, as I told them, so it evened out.”

“The lonelies?”

“Every whore’s favourite client,” she said, fiddling with the tassel on a hanging decoration. “They’re just lonely and want company. Some of the older men didn’t even want sex. I was always bad at pretending I cared about their problems. Some of them even had families, they just didn’t feel properly ‘appreciated’ by them. They were free men and they had at least some money to spare on buying our time. I was a slave, but they wanted me to make _them_ feel better?” She breathed in and out sharply.

“I wish I could kill everyone who’s ever hurt you.”

She let out a little huff of a laugh, but her smile faded as she looked at him. “You mean that seriously, don’t you, my lord.”

It was not a question, so he didn’t bother to answer. Instead he moved directly to the issue weighing on his mind. “I want to have sex with you. Badly. I couldn’t concentrate on anything else.” He took a shuddery breath. “I’m sorry. I thought I could wait, but I _crave_ you.”

Her cheeks were pink and getting pinker. “My lord,” she whispered.

“Meng’an.” He closed the distance between them quickly, and she did not draw back from him, but rather turned her face up to meet his kiss.

His lust surged as she made the first move to unfasten his clothes. As fast as possible, she was naked beneath him on the bed. He hovered over her, watching the rise and fall of her chest. “Do I need to do something first?” he said, unsteadily. “How do I know when you’re ready?”

She reached for his hand, and he let her guide it between her legs. “If you rub me here, I’ll get wetter and it won’t hurt.”

His own breath was coming so fast that he had to slow it down consciously. “You promise you’ll tell me if I hurt you? I never want to do that.”

Meng’an blinked and blinked again, and he saw there were tears in her eyes. He stilled. “I’m making you cry…”

“No, you’re making me fall in love with you,” she said, and reached up to his face, running her fingers through his long bangs.

He had to kiss these lips that said such a thing to him, he could not do otherwise. Guan Xing’s fingers slid down to reverently caress her lower opening as he did so.

“You can enter me now,” she said when he finally broke the kiss. “I’m ready.”

She put a hand to his cock and guided him into her.

“Meng’an… it’s incredible…” he moaned as he slowly sank into her warmth.

His wife pulled him down into another kiss, and he could not be more eager to press his lips and his body against hers.

“You’re squeezing me so tightly.” _Slow your breaths down. You’re making yourself light-headed again._

Guan Xing began to move his hips. Even with having just came in her mouth less than twenty-four hours before, it didn’t take him long before he was coming again, groaning her name into the shell of her ear as her hands caressed his shoulders.

He lasted a little longer when he made love to her again that evening, but, as he laid awake later in the darkness, gazing at her sleeping face in the moonlight, he couldn’t kid himself that he’d made her feel even a portion of the pleasure she had given him.

That would need to change.

———

Lord Fa Zheng’s wife, Lady Pan, who let Guan Xing into his master’s home, looked on the verge of tears, but this did not phase him. She was, apparently, a naturally melancholy and tragic figure. Guan Xing was not sure if he had ever seen her without a handkerchief clutched in one thin hand.

“Must you disturb my lord today, Lord Guan Xing?” she whispered, in a pleading way. “He may be getting ill.”

“My dear, will you stop trying to manage my affairs?” The loud and rich tones of his master’s voice managed to be affectionate and scornful at the same time. “A single ride in the rain has you thinking I’m under sentence of death. If it is my beloved student who will give me the death blow, so be it.”

Guan Xing smiled at Lady Pan’s disappointed face as she feebly waved her handkerchief towards the open door of the study, where Lord Fa Zheng’s voice had come from. He showed himself in and closed the door behind him.

“Welcome,” said Lord Fa Zheng, gesturing to a cup of wine already poured for his guest. “What is on your mind, young master? The campaign against the Xiongnu?”

“No, that won’t be a problem, my lord,” he said, taking his seat across from his master.

“Something more personal?” Lord Fa Zheng smiled. “You know, by rights, I believe you owe me something for playing matchmaker, especially for such a brilliant match.”

Guan Xing smiled a little. “I think my lord is the only one yet who realizes it is.”

“She is your muse, I think. I only ever danced to my own tune, but then perhaps that is where you will surpass me… who knows what I could have been capable of with grand inspiration.” Lord Fa Zheng sipped his own drink. “You make me feel almost mundane. If I didn’t like you, I could kill you for that… ah, but I mistake! I should not presume to say that I could kill you.”

Guan Xing tapped his fingers to accept the compliment.

“My gracious student. Tell me how I may advise you.”

“I will pay you what I owe for the match in this opportunity to laugh at me,” Guan Xing said with a wry smile. “My lord, I want to know how to please a woman.”

As predicted, Lord Fa Zheng laughed, though it was one of his relatively pleasant laughs. “You had a father, an older brother… a married younger brother, for that matter… friends, of a kind…” Guan Xing rolled his eyes at this. Lord Fa Zheng had long made no secret around Guan Xing of his disrespect for not only Zhang Bao but his father Zhang Fei. “Did they all serve you so ill that you must come to me?”

Guan Xing chose to phrase it so as to avoid going into how recently his virginity had been lost. “I was never interested in a woman’s pleasure before now.”

“But your strategic mind! Did you not study—oh, of course.” Lord Fa Zheng got up, moved to his bookshelves, pulled a key from a pocket, and unlocked a cabinet which opened to reveal more books, from which he selected two volumes. Returning to Guan Xing, he said, “Your perambulatory youth! You never had the essential experience of sneaking furtive moments with Taoist sex manuals, the erotic thrill heightened by the terror that at any moment your father would notice they were missing. I commend you all the more for how well you have developed as a strategist anyway, with such a glaring gap in your formation.”

Lord Fa Zheng had been flipping through the pages of one volume, and suddenly turned the book and laid it flat in front of Guan Xing, open to a graphic set of illustrations of the female external and internal genitalia.

Guan Xing leaned forward slightly to look at the illustrations and the labels given for the various parts. Divine field… jade gate… deep valley… celestial palace… inner gate. “Taoist… but don’t they… doesn’t this sort of thing harm the woman to aid the man?”

“If you want a book that goes that far you will have to ask the prime minister, though I doubt he will give it to you. If you believe in that nonsense anyway; I don’t.” Lord Fa Zheng shrugged. “Lady Huang could pass for a woman ten years younger, whereas Kongming is the same age, maybe a year older, and already walks with a cane. Taoist ideas about eternal youth are rubbish, but their anatomy is solid.” He closed the book, stacked the other volume on it neatly, and got out twine to tie the two into a bundle. “Borrow these, study the illustrations and the practical instructions; skip the philosophy. If you do read the philosophy, be aware that some of it will probably morally outrage you. Take your feelings out somewhere other than these books, won’t you? I will want them back.”

“I would never destroy something of my lord’s,” Guan Xing said, a little affronted.

“You have an impulsivity to you still that needs tempering. I only give you this little nudge in advance because these books are quite hard to replace. My oldest son is twelve, and these need to be back in good condition in time for him to try to sneak them away.”

———

Meng’an had just been about to take off her robe when there was a knock at the door.

“May I join you?”

“Of course, my lord,” she said, unlocking and opening the door for him.

He didn’t come in when she moved back, but smiled. “Not ‘of course,” he chided lightly. “Do you want to be alone, or would it please you to have me with you?”

She reddened a bit, but smiled as well. “It would please me, my lord, truly.”

He closed the door and locked it as she took off her robe and hung it up. When she turned, her husband was almost close enough to be touching her as he took off his own robe. He leaned into her to hang his up and said quietly as he did so, “I was thinking I would like to clean you.”

His eyes were so dark and his gaze felt like it would burn holes into her body as he let his gaze follow the curves of her body. She let him lead her over to where the bathing stool sat in front of the large, steaming tub, and narrowed her eyes a bit when she saw there was an extra wash bucket.

“This was not a sudden impulse,” she said as she sat down, eyeing him speculatively.

“It’s something I’ve been thinking about for a few days,” he said as he reached for the scoop and began with her legs. “I like touching you.”

She put a hand to her cheek, blushing even hotter. How was it that it was his simplest words that affected her the most?

He was more muscular than the slightness of his frame and the loose lines of the way he dressed suggested. Naked and kneeling before her, she could fully appreciate the killing power in the back, shoulders, and arms that were gently scrubbing her feet as if he were a common servant instead of a duke.

“I don’t think I’ve told you before,” she said, “but you are really handsome.”

He looked up, and he got that rare shy look of his again. “Really?”

“You don’t know you are handsome?” she teased.

He shrugged a little, taking her left arm in his hands to wash it next. “My younger brother was always the handsome one.”

“He’s cute, not handsome,” she said, and he laughed.

“For my part, I know I’ve told you many times, but I always like to tell you again, how beautiful you are.”

The water cascaded down her arm, carrying away the soap and the dirt.

“I would like to think I would value you as you ought to be valued if you were not so beautiful,” he continued, “but I can’t imagine how your lovely soul could not fail to shine out of you no matter how you looked.”

“You praise me too much.”

He was washing her other arm now, and as he finished, he said, “Lean forward so I can wash your back and your hair.”

Meng’an leaned forward obediently as he stood up. Glancing to the side through the gaps in her hair, she could see that his cock was hard, and made a cool shiver in her belly despite the warm water he was pouring over her back.

_Should I touch him?_

“Close your eyes and sit up.”

He poured water over her head and began to wash her hair.

“Keep them closed until I say so, alright?” she heard him say.

He did not tell her to open them when he had finished rinsing her hair, however. Instead, she felt his kiss on her collarbone as he began to… well, he was rubbing and massaging her breasts, but it no longer appeared that his primary motivation was cleanliness.

Her eyes fluttered open and she reached out to touch his cock. He made a little moan when she did so, but he gently took her wrist and pulled it away.

“Later,” he said thickly. “Stand up.”

She stood up.

“Lean back a bit, you can hold onto the side of the bath. And spread your legs.”

Again she obeyed.

He tested the water temperature, then poured the warm water over her pelvis so that it flowed over her mons and ran in rivulets between her labia.

Then he knelt between her legs.

———

His wife’s body twitched a little as he placed his hands on her labia and parted them.

Divine field… this was what she had him haphazardly rub in order to lubricate enough for him to enter her without pain.

He wanted to do so much more than simply enable her to endure his pleasure.

“My lord,” he heard his wife say as he first kissed her clit. “My—oh!”

Following the instructions in one of the books, he had taken her clit into his mouth and was gently running circles around it with his tongue. He gripped her thigh with one arm and had his other hand in the small of her back, keeping her as steady as possible for him.

She made no more words that he could understand for some time as he relentlessly stimulated that secret place, switching sometimes to a rhythmic suckle. The taste of her was not like any flavour he’d experienced before, so distinctive and delicious yet no adjective seemed to fit it; tangy but not tangy, sweet but not sweet, savoury but not savoury. When he slid his tongue down to lap at her entrance, her nectar coated his tongue, unctuous and decadent.

Her body trembled in his arms as she came for him. Guan Xing kissed her clit again, then stood up, helped her to stand, and kissed her mouth.

“How… how did you do that?”

He felt a surge of pride. “You’ve never felt that before?”

“No, that was… that was…”

“If it’s as good as that, then perhaps it is as good as how you make me feel,” he said. “That’s what I wanted to give you.” With a little regret, he pulled away from her and began washing himself. “Go ahead and get in.”

“But the wash water must be cold by now… and I haven’t taken care of you yet…”

“Take care of me in bed afterwards,” he said with a wicked smile.

———

Yet again that night, he found himself gazing at her as she slept. He coiled the tip of her braid around his finger and rubbed the silky strands over his thumb.

When he had impulsively decided to kill Jin Fang—originally his plan had only been to find out what happened—and then killed the rest of those most responsible for his wife’s time as a slave, though he had felt no real guilt at their deaths, he had wondered if he was perhaps going too far.

Now he knew he had not gone nearly far enough. If he had it to do over again, their deaths would not have been so quick.

Heaven had subjected her to unfathomable cruelty, but she had survived it, and now heaven had entrusted her to him. That he would keep her safe and make her happy from now on wasn’t enough for him. It couldn’t make up for what she had endured.

He had finessed his wedding into a wide warning to the world at large that his wife was a woman to respect. But here in the dark, he itched for some fool to try something.

———

Guan Xing put the note he had received from Zhang Bao to the flame of the candle.

He was supposed to leave to lead the campaign to drive back the Xiongnu in only two days. That didn’t give him much time to make sure that the atmosphere in the capital would be as he wished while he was gone. He would need to rush, which meant he could not afford any mistakes.

“I’m going out; I don’t need a guard,” he called as soon as the note was ash.

———

Guan Suo welcomed his brother in with surprise, and watched Guan Xing stalk inside his home and kick out the servant who was cleaning his study as if he was master there with even more surprise, but he was easy-going to a fault and so he merely closed the door when he followed after and sighed. “You want me to help you do something awful, don’t you?”

Guan Xing chuckled. “Not actively, passively.”

Guan Suo regarded how his brother had taken his favourite chair. “You make me think I’m a little too passive.”

“The chair?”

“The chair.”

Obligingly, Guan Xing switched to another chair. “I’m not going to be staying here long. But I am going to be staying late into the night. Understand?”

Guan Suo felt a dip in his stomach. “Er Ge… when I said you wanted me to help you do something awful, I was joking.”

“It’s nothing awful. It’s necessary.”

“You also thought that disemboweling Fu Shiren and Mi Fang on our father’s altar was necessary.”

“And it was necessary. Xiao Suo, I don’t have a lot of time. I leave for the north in two days. Will you help me or not?”

Despite his misgivings, Guan Suo wouldn’t have answered any other way. “I will. If I’m asked, when did you leave?”

“I’ll let you know later,” his brother said, already changing his clothes.

———

Guan Xing did not feel any guilt as he slowly pushed the heavy lid of the big wooden shipping container through its groove. When it was closed, he risked lighting a candle and circled the container, checking for any sign that it contained three corpses instead of a load of cotton. He didn’t see any. Obviously, eventually the smell, if nothing else, would cause discovery, but he wanted them to be discovered; he just wanted them to be discovered when time would have done the work of preventing anyone who may have seen him at his business from realizing they had witnessed something significant.

He had made things very clear, to any who had wit enough to perceive it, how things were going to be, how she was to be treated and talked about. If they didn’t understand it and respect it, his uncle the emperor was better off without these so-called officials in his service.

Guan Xing checked the wineskin he had tied to his belt for leaks, found none, extinguished the lamp, and left the warehouse via the roof, the same way he had come in and out several times that night. His luck held: the bored night watchmen were still too busy with their gambling game to notice him.

As he touched down to earth, a drunkard who had been passed out in the alley the previous times he had gone that way was awake and blinking at him blearily in the moonlight. His sunken eyes brightened at the wineskin. “Wine to spare, mister?” he managed to slur.

“Not for you, trash,” Guan Xing spat and moved on. In truth he felt no particular malice for the man, but he reckoned that this was the kind of response that the man would find most usual and thus forget about most quickly. The sigh and grumble behind him as he went on supported this guess.

Dogs were his biggest concern, but he had with him a fitting way to encourage their silence.

“Here, have at it,” he said, throwing the last piece of flesh from within the wineskin to a guard dog that got a little too excited. Despite the need to move fast, he couldn’t resist looking back over his shoulder just once to see the dog eagerly eating the gossip’s tongue.


	3. Chapter 3

“Don’t walk anywhere alone, even to go a short distance, alright? Take the palanquin.”

He’d told her that several times already, but she couldn’t dislike his concern for her safety. “Yes, my lord.”

“If you get lonely you can stay with Weiren, or with Xiao Suo, or your parents. Take any of the servants with you, if you wish. And of course your guard. Never go anywhere without your guard.”

“I’d like to visit my parents. That’s a good idea.”

He brushed at a curl beneath her ear and kissed her lips softly. “I’ll write to you when I can.”

“How often can I write you? I don’t want to be a bother… or embarrass you.”

Guan Xing smiled. “You can bundle the letters together, if you’re worried you’re writing too many.”

She took the letter from her sleeve, and held it out to him. “This one is for you to read tonight.”

There was a glow in his eyes as he took the letter from her and tucked it into his jacket, above his heart. “I wish I had more time. Goodbye, Meng’an.”

His kiss this time was passionate and needy, barely letting her breathe between the pressure of his mouth on hers and how tightly he was gripping her. When he let her go, she still clung on to steady herself for a moment before releasing him.

“Be safe, my lord,” she said, and followed him out to the door, where they went through the pantomime of a colder, more correct farewell in which he was strong and distant atop his horse and she shed a few, but not too many, tears.

Then he was gone.

“A-Pang?”

“Yes, my lady?”

“I want to send a message to my father.”

“Yes, my lady.”

———

There was a lot of muttering among the troops when they realized just how young, and therefore, they assumed, inexperienced, their commander was.

“Why is _he_ the commander?”

“Rank and relationship means more than ability. The way of the world!”

During their first engagement with the enemy Guan Xing personally fought on the frontlines. It ended in a decisive rout of the Xiongnu forces and the liberation of a significant strategic point. The muttering largely stopped.

As commander, he not only directed his officers, but also continuously inspected all areas of the forces. He regularly made himself available to even the freshest soldier who wished to report something to him, and was said to listen to their words on their merits, though he would be harsh in disciplining anyone who he felt had wasted his time.

He was not in any way liked, however. They called him proud, never to his face. And to many, nothing is more delicious than to skewer the pretensions of the proud.

One day, a veteran soldier who had served under Guan Yu and had an avuncular regard for his son requested a moment of the commander’s time to make a report.

———

“Is this the tongue that was talking about my wife?”

The soldier who had dared laugh and tell tales about the commander’s whore wife couldn’t answer, because that commander had his tongue in a firm grip as the soldier knelt, quivering in his bonds, before him.

Guan Xing looked down impassively. “My wife’s past is mine. So any tongue that talks about her past—” he readied a sharp knife—“is also mine.”

With those words, he cut out the man’s tongue. The man fell shrieking and spitting blood to the ground, and Guan Xing, his expression still neutral, wiped his knife and sheathed it. He bent down slightly, picked up the severed tongue where it had dropped in the dirt with one hand, and with little apparent effort lifted the man up by the ropes binding him from the back with the other. He turned.

“Captain.”

His subofficer bowed. “Yes, my lord.”

“This man is dishonourably discharged from the army.”

“Yes, my lord.”

“The ones who stayed and listened to him—excepting the one who reported it—are to receive twenty lashes during the evening meal for failure to report insubordination but no other punishment.”

“Yes, my lord.”

“Is there anything else requiring my attention?”

“No, my lord.”

“I’m ready to eat.”

“At once, my lord.”

Guan Xing casually dropped the bound, sobbing man at the foot of the meal station, where every common soldier would have to walk past him to get their food. He threw the man’s severed tongue into the fire beneath the rice pot, then washed his hands and took a seat in his usual place.

Ordinarily, mealtime was an occasion for lots of talking and laughter among the men, but the camp was dead silent as they ate, save for the sound of the cracking lash and the groans of the punished.

———

“Please tell me a story before bed, Baba,” said Li Yuan, “Something exciting.”

“Hmm… exciting…” Li Dian said. “I don’t know… I think all the exciting stories I know might be too scary.”

“They wouldn’t be!” the boy pleaded. “I know, you could tell me a history story! Then it will be educational.”

“You won’t go and knock on Jiejie’s (big sister’s) door in the middle of the night if I tell you one, will you?”

“I didn’t do that because I was scared! I was just checking that Jiejie wasn’t scared!”

Meng’an smiled. “It was so sweet of you to think of me, Yuanyuan. I felt much better with you keeping me company.”

“See, Baba?”

Li Dian shook his head. “Alright. An exciting history story… hm… well, the first Han emperor, Liu Bang, when he was fighting against Xiang Yu, had a mighty general named Han Xin…”

Li Yuan listened with wide eyes.

“And so, in order not to contradict Liu Bang’s earlier promise not to harm him, Han Xin was hung in the air inside a bell and skewered with bamboo sticks; thus, he was neither facing heaven nor standing on earth, and the weapons that killed him were none used by soldiers. When Liu Bang heard of his death, he asked his last words. Han Xin’s last words were that he regretting not listening to Kuai Che.”

“Do you think if he had listened to Kuai Che, and betrayed Liu Bang back then, Xiang Yu might have become the emperor instead?” Li Yuan said. Meng’an was impressed that her brother had matured enough to be interested in this, rather than in the gory details of the man tortured to death inside a bell.

Li Dian shrugged. “Perhaps. Or perhaps Liu Bang still would have won… To analyze such things is good practice for the decisions you will have to make in your life. Now, you’ve had your story, off to bed.”

Li Yuan kissed his sister, his mother, and his father and went off.

“I think I’ll go to sleep as well, I’m tired,” Meng’an’s mother Lady Wang said, setting aside her embroidery and wandering off without seeming to hear her husband and daughter’s farewells.

“Father… is it really alright that I’m going to stay with my brother-in-law tomorrow? I don’t have to go.”

“Yes you do,” her father said. “You belong to the Guan clan now. They were generous to let you visit at all.”

“My brother-in-law would understand, if I say my mother is ill…”

“She’s not ill.”

Meng’an was silent. Lady Wang was not ill, exactly, but she wasn’t well, either.

Li Dian sighed. “I don’t mean to be so short with you. It’s only that I hate to give you up again at all, even when he’s not here.”

“Father, truly, I am not lying. He has never been violent or even harsh with me.” She had tried to tell him this so many times…

Her father only shook his head, but then seemed to force a smile. “Your sister-in-law seems like a… fun young lady.”

Meng’an laughed. “She’s a little rough around the edges, but she’s kind and cheerful. And she can be funny. I do think I will enjoy getting to know her better.”

“I get a good feeling about her. I won’t worry about you there, at least. And she’ll need you, with no sisters or mother of her own and her time coming so soon,” her father pointed out. “So you must go, Meng’an.”

She nodded, and got up to kiss his forehead goodnight. He caught her hand and squeezed it.

“Don’t think you can go out freely with just Lady Bao as a companion,” he said. “The warehouse where those three murdered officials were found isn’t far from where Master Guan Suo lives. There doesn’t seem to be any reason why someone would want to kill all three of them like that, so it might be some kind of maniac. Take the guard with you, always.”

“Of course, father.”

———

After the successful repulsion of the Xiongnu invasion, Guan Xing might have been expected to have received an enthusiastic welcome from his imperial uncle, but the emperor’s face was grave as the commander made his report before the emperor and his council. The prime minister, standing at his side, was neutral; most of the councillors looked daunted or uneasy, excepting only Fa Zheng, who wore a small, sardonic smile. However, the commander showed no sign of dismay or even disappointment.

Liu Bei had a feeling before he even began that he was not going to accomplish anything, but he felt he owed it to his oath brother to try.

There was a long pause after Guan Xing finished recounting the last stages of the campaign and how he had relinquished command of the situation to the governor of Yong province.

“Guan Xing,” the emperor said, “While I am overall pleased with your results, I have heard some things about this campaign which disturb me.”

“I am always anxious to correct my faults.”

“Some of the punishments which you inflicted upon the troops under your command seem to be to be both excessively cruel and motivated by… personal concerns.”

“I cannot think of anything that would meet either of those criteria,” Guan Xing said calmly. “I maintained order and morale, which could not be possible with excessively cruel punishments. As for personal concerns, a commander’s person is central to the success of his command; if he does not command respect, loyalty, fear, and unhesitating obedience in his subordinates and men, he will fall at the first hurdle.”

In Liu Bei’s peripheral vision, Fa Zheng was playing idly with the edges of his shawl.

“I heard you cut out the tongue of a soldier that was telling tales about your wife, displayed him, bound and tongueless, before the troops, and then dismissed him. Is that accurate?”

“It is, your majesty.”

“What happened to him after you dismissed him?”

“I did not ask, your majesty.”

Liu Bei thought for a moment about whether he should ask about the veracity of the savage saying that had been attributed to him and which had spread back to Luoyang before even the official, dry report of the punishment had trickled through. _Any tongue that speaks about her past is mine._

“Just before you left, there was a strange disappearance of three civil officials in my service. A week or so later, their bodies were found together. Missing their tongues.” Liu Bei paused. “A strange thing. No one could explain it.”

Guan Xing’s face hadn’t changed, not so much as a twitch. “It sounds grim, your majesty.”

“It is commonly said now that they had been joking about your wife, and that therefore you killed them.”

“Your majesty, I can hardly control what people say.” Guan Xing smiled.

Liu Bei’s eyes tracked from his oath-nephew’s smile to Fa Zheng’s smile and back. They were so similar, they were almost identical. He was sure Guan Xing had not smiled like that when Guan Yu was still alive. “There’s no evidence connecting you to the murders, of course. I am glad to have you home, Guan Xing, and I hope things will be peaceful, now that you are here. I’m sure you wish to go home.” He gestured dismissal.

“Thank you, your majesty,” Guan Xing said and left.

When the door had closed, Liu Bei turned his head. “Fa Zheng…”

Fa Zheng laughed, holding his hands up in an expression of innocence. “Acquit me, your majesty! The raw material was always there!”

Zhuge Liang coughed slightly, and Liu Bei glanced up to where he stood. “Your majesty. I did foresee this possibility when I first assigned Lord Guan Xing to Lord Fa Zheng’s command. If the result displeases you so much, the fault is mine.”

Liu Bei sighed. “I can’t help but think his father would hate what he’s become.”

“A highly effective, supremely intelligent, yet malicious and vindictive individual who shows absolute loyalty to those he loves and utter savagery to those he hates,” said Zhuge Liang, and then surprised Liu Bei by adding, “As you have benefitted so greatly from Lord Fa Zheng, my plans for the future of the land suggested that the next generation may also benefit from someone of this kind.”

“Kongming doesn’t call me odious or despicable this time,” Fa Zheng said, smiling as always. “I’m growing on you, aren’t I?”

Zhuge Liang’s mouth upturned ever so slightly, but he made no reply to this, merely continuing to his emperor: “However even Lord Fa Zheng has not entirely rid Lord Guan Xing of the moral grounding that the emperor and his beloved oath brother so well inculcated into him in his childhood. I am far surer of the permanence of Lord Guan Xing’s loyalty to the dynasty than I ever was of Lord Fa Zheng’s, if he will pardon my saying so; and while Lord Guan Xing may punish those he hates out of proportion to their crimes, he will not persecute merely those who irritate him.”

“It is never your truths which I disdain, Kongming,” Fa Zheng said. “I may suggest that you do not test his irritation overmuch, however. I notice you have kept him and your Jiang Wei well apart, since our campaign together.”

Zhuge Liang inclined his head slightly, perhaps in acknowledgement. “However. Just as you have… tolerated… a few things that Lord Fa Zheng has done,” and Zhuge Liang paused, allowing everyone to recall the various vindictive executions that Fa Zheng had arranged against former colleagues who irritated him when Liu Bei took over, “I fear, your majesty, that we will have to overlook certain private vengeances of Lord Guan Xing’s. But when someday your son wishes a certain thing done—” Zhuge Liang’s fan suddenly hit the table, and Liu Bei startled—“Lord Guan Xing will see it done, as if it were his own passion.”

Liu Bei’s heart was still troubled. Fa Zheng’s smile suddenly softened.

“Ah, Kongming, even you have gotten too pragmatic for our lord in your old age,” he said. “My lord, he is his own man, I promise you. I can’t say whether his father would agree with him, but I think he would be proud of him. And I may say, though I do not know if my disciple would define it the same as my lord, my disciple still believes with his whole heart in benevolence.”

Liu Bei smiled a little himself.

———

Guan Xing went home and discovered from his servants there that his wife had been staying with his younger brother, sister-in-law, and their new baby. That was fine, it was good, even; he was glad that they were including her like that. He ordered that the palanquin be readied to collect her and a horse for himself.

He took off his travelling clothes, washed, and made himself presentable for their reunion beforeheading to where his brother lived. He overtook the palanquin on the way but did not stop.

His brothers’ servants visibly startled at his approach, and hurried into a kneel. “My lord,” said one.

“Have my wife’s things packed to send home,” he said, dismounting. “Where is my brother?”

“I believe they’re all having dinner, my lord…”

“I’ll join them.”

Only Guan Suo was actually in the dining room when he was shown in, sitting at a nearly empty plate, though there was evidence of two others having been there not long before.

“Er Ge,” his younger brother said, “have you eaten?”

“No, I haven’t.”

Guan Suo shook his head with a rueful smile. “Should I order some food for you, or have you already done it?”

“I haven’t, though I admit I would have if I had known you were almost finished,” Guan Xing said, smiling back as he took an empty seat. “I take advantage of you, but you make it easy.”

Guan Suo made a kind of half shrug, and signalled to a servant. “You’re head of the family, anyway.”

“I learned at my house that I have a nephew to meet. Congratulations.”

The lone servant having left, Guan Suo leaned towards his brother and said quietly, “I didn’t know it was going to be _that_ awful. You really do take advantage of me, Er Ge.”

Guan Xing was unphased by the sudden topic shift. “Did our uncle press you about it?”

“He sure did. By the time I knew what you had done, I was committed. Not that I would have squealed on you in any case, but what really happened? It can’t just be because of the things they said?”

A servant came back in with a bowl of steaming rice. Guan Xing picked up his chopsticks and took a bite as the servant left again, and then said, “They made themselves examples.” He took another bite, chewed, swallowed. “I won’t involve you if it occurs again. I was pressed for time.”

“Er Ge!” Guan Suo hissed.

“Is Tangge’s reaction like yours?” Guan Xing inquired, referring to Zhang Bao as their cousin.

Guan Suo frowned and appeared to be thinking of how to put it, especially since the servant reappeared with more food for his brother. “You’ll have to talk to him yourself,” he said finally. “He was surprised, but… I think he was somehow amused. You two always did love playing at being vigilantes when we were kids.”

Guan Xing smiled at that as he ate. He had thought that Zhang Bao would support him, and he was glad to have been proven right.

“Hey, hey, I heard the hero of the hour is here!” came Sanniang’s annoyingly nasal voice as she swept into the room, an infant in her arms. “I know you’re not really here to see your nephew, but you better pretend like he’s the best thing you’ve ever seen!”

Guan Xing stood up and smiled genuinely at them, and even more broadly at his wife, whom he could see over their shoulder. “No pretending will be necessary, I can already tell.”

“You want to hold him? You’re lucky, he’s in a good mood.”

Guan Xing accepted the bundle. “He looks as handsome and skeptical of me as his father.”

He heard his brother’s amused snort. “Thanks, I think.”

“Welcome home, my lord,” said Meng’an, and Guan Xing looked back up from the baby’s face to see there were no misgivings in her smile. His heart quickened a bit.

“We call him Qiangqiang,” said Sanniang. She didn’t mention the character, but Guan Xing guessed the milk name was probably derived from the wild rose, like the one his brother was wearing in his hair.

“How feminine,” Guan Xing said, with a mocking glance to his brother, who rolled his eyes at him. “You don’t give him his own flower?”

“He doesn’t have enough hair for it,” Guan Suo said. “Sanniang, you’d better take him back so that Er Ge can finish his dinner. Are you all packed, Saosao (sister-in-law)?”

“A servant came to finish doing it,” Meng’an answered. “That’s how we knew my lord was here.”

Sanniang having taken Qiangqiang back, Guan Xing sat down again to eat, occasionally making noncommittal listening noises as Sanniang speculated enthusiastically about his successful campaign against the Xiongnu.

———

When she took her husband’s arm to exit the palanquin, he leaned in briefly to whisper hot against her ear: “I missed you.”

Meng’an’s cheeks heated as she let him lead her into his—their—home.

As she suspected he might, he lead her directly to their bedchamber. The door was bolted and he became a different man than the reserved and aloof face he presented the world. His mouth was hot and desperate on her face and neck as he worked urgently at the ties of her dress; his hands pressed inside her inner robes to stroke at the bare skin even before the clothing was properly off.

“I missed you to death,” he said, cupping a nipple which pebbled against his palm. She shrugged out of the inner robe and let it pool at her feet; now did not seem to be the time to care about clothes. “Will you get on the bed on your hands and knees for me?”

It was such erotic vulnerability, looking over her shoulder at how he stared at her bare bottom while he undid his belt and freed his erection from his pants. Apparently he wasn’t going to bother with any more than that, because he climbed onto the bed behind her just like that. He took his cock in his hand and teased its head from her entrance to her clit, back and forth, gathering her slick onto himself.

“My beautiful wife,” he growled, “how I missed you!”

With that he slid into her. He was more vigorous than he had ever been before, and Meng’an found herself lowering her shoulders down to better brace against his thrusts, making her nipples rub back and forth on the sheets. She moaned.

“I missed this, I missed being inside you like this,” he said, reaching his hand around the front to rub at her clit. “I missed touching you here, God, Meng’an, I missed you. I missed hearing you, I want to hear you louder.”

“My lord, ah, I missed you too.”

He made a frustrated moan, slowing his pace. “I don’t want this to end so soon, but you feel too good… it’s been so long…”

 _No, don’t slow down!_ “Don’t hold back, make me come after. Make me come with your cum inside me. I want your cum inside me, my lord.”

“Oh God, Meng’an, _Meng’an—”_

His hips sped back up, making her nipples rub faster again, his fingers were still massaging a circle around her clit with every stroke. It felt so good, so good, so good!

“I’m coming,” she cried out, “don’t stop, my lord, I’m coming!”

Afterwards she undressed him and submitted when he told her that he didn’t give a damn even if the clothes were ruined, so she just let them fall on the floor by the bed as well. They curled up together in the bed.

“My lord… I want you to know that your good opinion is enough for me,” she said, and saw that he picked up her meaning immediately.

“I don’t want to give you what you can put up with,” he said. “I am going to make sure you receive what you deserve, as long as I draw breath. Now that I’ve made it clear, it should be alright.”

She snuggled in closer to his chest, felt the strength of the arms that embraced her, and closed her eyes.

———

“You really have turned into one bad motherfucker, haven’t you?” Zhang Bao said by way of greeting when he hailed him in the street. “You didn’t come to see me, you ungrateful bastard.”

Guan Xing felt really good. He liked the open admiration in his older cousin’s eyes, the laughter in his voice; he liked it especially in how it contrasted to how passersby averted their eyes and hurried their steps when they recognized him. “Sorry. I’ve been busy. How have you been, Weiren? Your family?”

“Everyone’s well,” he answered. “I had a letter from Xingcai, she’s pregnant. My mother will be going to Jianye to see her pretty soon.”

“Pass on my congratulations when you write to her,” Guan Xing said.

“I will. Now that you’re done in the north, I suppose we’ll be going after Sima Yi at last?”

Guan Xing shrugged. “I know it dominates the prime minister’s mind, but I do not know his actual plans.”

“Well, I know you’ve just gotten back, but I’ve been bored as hell. You tell the prime minister that this time you can stay in Luoyang and I’ll go cut some heads off. I may not be as smart as you, but I can follow orders.”

“You don’t mind being separated from Lady Lu?”

Zhang Bao shrugged with the carefree confidence of youth. “I’ll come back to her.”

“Come spar with me. This afternoon?”

“Sure, just name the place.”

———

When Guan Xing answered Zhuge Liang’s summons, he was surprised and displeased that the first face he saw when he entered was Jiang Wei’s, and the feeling was mutual. Zhuge Liang’s apprentice’s face was openly disgusted towards him, so Guan Xing gave him his most fiendish smile after he bowed, then said to the prime minister, “I’m here, my lord.”

Zhuge Liang, for his part, looked intensely depressed. “I have a matter I want you to discuss with Lord Fa Zheng for me and then report back on what he suggests.”

Guan Xing frowned. Why wouldn’t the prime minister talk to Lord Fa Zheng himself? Though the two master strategists had long and famously disliked each other, in recent years this had warmed to a strange kind of affectionate contempt. But it was not his place to refuse a command. “Certainly.”

Zhuge Liang held out a scroll. “I have not had this copied, so be very careful with it. Its contents are top secret. Discuss them with your master and no one else. Come back here this evening and dine with me.”

Guan Xing bowed. “My lord.”

———

Lord Fa Zheng’s face expressed intense curiosity as Guan Xing reported on Zhuge Liang’s orders, and he took the scroll and began to read. Almost immediately, he started laughing, and as he read, his laughter increased to the point that he had to put the scroll down and wipe tears from his eyes.

It was not the reaction Guan Xing had expected to news that had made the prime minister so forlorn, and his face expressed his puzzlement.

“Oh, Kongming,” Lord Fa Zheng managed, “what a disappointment for you, and yet you can’t express it. No wonder you don’t want to see me. I will have you crawling with shame at the feelings you cannot acknowledge.” He gestured to the scroll where it lay on his desk. “Read it.”

Guan Xing picked up the scroll. The meaning, though by no means the actual words, was that Cao Rui had taken very ill and was not expected to recover. Without Cao Rui as a puppet emperor, Sima Yi could not hope to maintain a seamless control of the vestigial state of Wei in the northeast. While Sima Yi would have probably still come out on top of a power struggle if Wei did not have external enemies, Sima Yi was not fool enough to think he could risk even a brief power struggle without losing everything. He wanted to negotiate a surrender while it would still _be_ a negotiation.

Guan Xing looked up. “I don’t understand.”

“Zhuge Liang has had some successes of the nature that goes down in legend,” Lord Fa Zheng said, leaning back in his chair, “but he is not satisfied. He believes he is capable of much more. I grant that he is. He wanted to defeat Sima Yi in a magnificent way. He wanted to have to work for it, not to have it handed to him. But he knows very well that this is the grossest vanity and selfishness. And he knew, also, that I would immediately comprehend all of his feelings and laugh at him. The poor bastard.” He laughed again for some time. “Ah, and the worst part, the worst part! He needs my help! He cannot get out of his own feelings enough to trust that he is proceeding correctly, and there is no time to be wasted. He could have turned to some others, yet he chooses me. Ah, Kongming, you are less selfish than you think! I will be merciful to you after all. When did he want you back?”

“For dinner, he said.”

“What are your thoughts?”

“He is a betrayer,” Guan Xing said. “He connived at his lord’s death and uses his lord’s son for his own purposes. He is cunning, ambitious, and merciless. He cannot be allowed to live, no matter his talents. We can offer him his sons’ lives; he should be grateful to get so much.”

“I am glad you were not advising our lord when I betrayed Liu Zhang,” Lord Fa Zheng said, still smiling.

Guan Xing could not believe he had spoken so thoughtlessly. “Forgive me.”

“No, your advice is not necessarily wrong,” his master said, waving that aside. “For one such as Lü Bu, for example, I would agree. But Sima Yi is of my mettle. He had good reason to abandon Cao Pi when he did. If the emperor manages him well, he will not rebel. And your mention of his sons is to the point.” He tapped the desk. “He’s well known to be ruled by his wife. She’s the one who’s gotten him this far, so I think we’ll leave her with him. The sons, however…”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know if I mentioned earlier, but the _xieyi_ is a Han dynasty form of female underwear.

Guan Xing bowed low to his father-in-law as he entered his tent. “Yuezhang (Father-in-law), it’s good to see you looking well. How were my mother-in-law and brother-in-law when you left?”

It was the first night of their trek northeast to reassert imperial power, integrate with Sima Yi’s surrendered forces, and deal with any rebellions that might pop up. Guan Xing had made sure to request that Li Dian not be put directly under his command, so they had not had the opportunity to speak before now, and had not seen each other in Luoyang the entire time that Guan Xing was back between the campaigns.

Li Dian bowed, looking grave but at least not as openly hostile as he had looked the last time they met privately. “Your mother-in-law is not well, my lord. My son is well.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. By all means, if you would like my wife to stay with them instead of my brother, I could write to arrange it.”

“That would be very kind of you, my lord.” Li Dian offered him a seat, and they sat down.

“Is there anything else I can do for you?” Guan Xing said. “You may come and find me at any time; I am at your service. And please, don’t call me lord. Use my name, or my style name.”

“You’ve made your point,” Li Dian had closed his eyes.

“I’m not trying to score points against you, Yuezhang.”

He let out a bitter chuckle. “You’ve already won, so what difference is a few points one way or the other?”

Guan Xing was quiet for a moment. “I should stay for a bit, so as not to draw notice to how short my visit was.”

Li Dian opened his eyes at that and regarded his son-in-law. “You care a lot about face, don’t you.”

“As it affects her, I do.”

A minute of silence.

“There’s nothing I can say to reassure you?” Guan Xing said.

“My daughter says you treat her well and that she is happy. But you… you are a _demon_. What would she tell me if you did not treat her well?”

It was an unanswerable objection that had not previously occurred to Guan Xing. He had assumed that his father-in-law would relax after seeing that his daughter was happy after nearly a year of marriage. But his father-in-law did not underrate his son-in-law’s cunning nor his daughter’s endurance. If Guan Xing wanted to abuse her, he was clever enough to do it in such a way that he wouldn’t be caught; if Meng’an was being abused, she would bear with it stoically rather than place her family in any danger.

Guan Xing brooded over the problem for another few minutes of silence.

At last he said, “Write to your wife and tell her, when your daughter comes to stay with you, that if Meng’an is unhappy she can go to the empress. The empress will listen to her, and regarding such a matter the emperor will listen to the empress over me. Your daughter will be made safe, your family will be shielded from me, and I won’t find out about it in time to do anything.”

Li Dian’s eyes narrowed. He leaned back a bit and crossed his arms. “What’s your motivation in telling me this?”

“I want you to believe her. It must be hurting her that she can’t alleviate your suspicions.”

Li Dian scoffed a little. “Again, it’s all for her, huh?”

“Absolutely,” Guan Xing said swiftly.

“My suspicions cannot be alleviated by anything she says. You are one of the worst men I have ever had the misfortunate to come in contact with. It doesn’t matter if you haven’t shown that side of yourself to her yet. There is no possible way that I will believe you won’t eventually turn it on her. And I have no ability to stop you. She is my darling, but I can’t protect her from _anything._ Why heaven singled her out for such endless agony I cannot comprehend.” Li Dian’s fists clenched. “You’ve been here long enough. Go away, it makes me sick to look at you.”

Guan Xing bowed low again and left.

———

The first test of the sincerity of Sima Yi’s secret surrender came when they marched on Ye castle.

According to what Sima Yi had told the prime minister, he had given secret instructions to Sima Zhi, his cousin, to surrender the fortress-town, and, even more critically, to hand over Sima Yi’s two sons. The sons were to be interrogated to make sure they were the real descendants of Sima Yi, then separated, with the elder being sent to Luoyang and the younger to Jianye.

The gates opened at the imperial forces’ approach, but the officers ordered approach with caution, in case this should be a trap.

But it was no trap.

Sima Zhi knelt and kowtowed before Guan Xing, Jiang Wei, and Zhang Bao. Behind him, a small child clung to a slightly older one.

“These are his sons?” Guan Xing said.

“They are, my lord,” said Sima Zhi.

“Sima Shi,” Guan Xing addressed the children, “give your brother to Master Jiang Wei here and then come with me.”

“No,” the younger child said, clinging on tighter, “Gege (big brother), don’t let them! I don’t want to go! I want Mama!”

“A-Zhao, they’re just going to ask us questions,” the older boy said. “Let go of me. You’re embarrassing us. We’ll be together again after.”

Sniffling, the younger boy reluctantly let go and walked to Jiang Wei.

Interrogating a small child was a new and unpleasant experience. Even if the young Sima Shi carried himself with the dignity and intelligence of a full-grown man, it was actually a pitiable imitation.

Guan Xing went through the prearranged list of questions—what was your mother wearing when you left, what does your father like to eat for breakfast, what gods are present on your family shrine, what does your father call your mother in private, what was the last thing Sima Zhao was punished for?

“Probably sucking his thumb,” Sima Shi said after thinking a moment, to that last one. “Or breaking something, maybe.”

“And what was the last thing you were punished for?”

Sima Shi’s lip trembled. “I don’t want to tell you.”

Guan Xing regarded the child for a moment. “I think we probably have enough without that,” he said, getting up. “Stay here quietly.”

The younger child was still being interrogated, so he took a break to drink a cup of tea. When Jiang Wei finally called him in, Guan Xing held his hand out for Jiang Wei’s copy of the notes from the interrogation, hoping to avoid having to actually discuss them with him. Jiang Wei didn’t look happy about it, but Guan Xing outranked him and he handed the notes over.

There wasn’t a perfect correlation, of course—the younger child, as the length of the interrogation suggested, had been too upset and afraid to be very accurate. But there was enough correlation in enough unusual particulars that would have been difficult to train two unrelated young children to memorize.

Guan Xing looked at the last items of Sima Zhao’s interrogation:

_Last Sima Zhao punishment: sucking his thumb_

_Last Sima Yi punishment: said something bad to father_

“What did your brother say to your father that was so bad?”

“I don’t know why it was so bad,” Sima Zhao answered. “Something about a nest and eggs…”

Guan Xing heard Jiang Wei sigh. _An overturned nest will have no unbroken eggs;_ so had Kong Rong’s children said when he was arrested. Young as they were, Kong Rong’s children knew that Cao Cao’s arrest of their father would inevitably end with their own deaths for his crimes. To know and to make such a reference at an even younger age… Sima Shi was no ordinary boy.

“Stay here,” Guan Xing said to the boy, and went out to the corridor, Jiang Wei following him. Guan Xing handed the two notes to Jiang Wei, and as the other man scanned them, said, “They are Sima Yi’s sons.”

Jiang Wei didn’t answer initially, still glancing from one paper to the other. At last he said, “I agree.”

“If we let the brothers meet again,” Guan Xing said, “the younger one will surely become hysterical when they are separated, as the older one will realize it will be permanent. Sima Zhao would need to be restrained, which could damage him.”

“What do you suggest, my lord?” Jiang Wei said, with a tone that suggested that he expected such a heartless attitude from Guan Xing, treating the boys as if they were cargo needing only to be delivered unbroken.

“Lie to him and say you are taking him to his mother. By the time he realizes it was a lie, he’ll be Wu’s problem.”

Jiang Wei bowed, though Guan Xing did not mistake the gesture for respect. “As you wish, my lord. You’ll handle the elder?”

“That one hardly needs handling,” Guan Xing said, then after thinking a moment, added, “Well, handling to get him to Luoyang without hurting him, at least. As for how the prime minister will deal with him, that’s another question entirely.”

“If the boy could only be made to understand his good fortune that the prime minister plans to raise him as a foster son,” Jiang Wei said, and Guan Xing internally groaned at how Jiang Wei always fawned over Zhuge Liang like this no matter who was around. “One day he will realize that this was the luckiest day of his young life.”

“Why, Master Jiang Wei, and you think your morality so advanced? Where is your filial piety?” With this lightly mocking remark as a farewell, Guan Xing left to go deal with Sima Shi, enjoying that he had made Jiang Wei hate him just that little bit more.

———

Guan Xing eagerly opened the letter from his wife.

_My lord, I have serious matters to write, such that I hardly know how to put them down._

_I must begin with my mother, who has left this world. I cannot think how to write it. The illness she contracted in Qinghe killed her._

Guan Xing breathed in sharply. He had met his mother-in-law several times; she had not been physically ill at any of them. So it was not a physical illness, if she got it in Qinghe. Reading between the lines, his mother-in-law had died by suicide, and her daughter was blaming what they had endured in their capture and their slavery.

_My brother found her body and is suffering intensely. I have brought him to live with me, I thought my lord could not object._

He would have to write her back immediately and reassure her that it was indeed the case.

_Old pains and sorrows ache anew. I wish I had my lord with me. I am trying my best to remain calm. I did not wish to tell you until I was more certain, but as I must write you now in any case, I feel I cannot rightly conceal from you that I may be carrying my lord’s child._

His sadness swept off him in an instant, but his elation did not last.

_Nothing could be of higher importance to me than your child’s safety, my lord. To have received such a shock at such a time cannot be worse. I hardly know how I will bear it if I fail you now. I cannot imagine taking up the brush to report such a thing. If I do not mention this matter in my future letters, you will know the worst has happened. I beg my lord to mercifully not inquire if such becomes the case._

_I have not mentioned this last in my letter to my father informing him of my mother’s death. With him, I think the matter should only be revealed if it is impossible to conceal._

Guan Xing’s eyes blurred as he skimmed over the more rote commonplaces of her closing. He blinked back the tears as he sat back. Meng’an was suffering, and blaming herself for her own suffering; thinking of everyone else, putting herself last.

Still, a child! At one time he would have considered such a thing the only value a wife gave, he reflected ruefully. That was certainly no longer the case, yet he still could not help but yearn that this child would be safely born. This would be a tricky return letter to write. He had to make it clear that he would never blame or think less of her if, as she put it, the worst should happen, yet that he was also excited and happy at her pregnancy.

At least he didn’t have to think about how to deal with his father-in-law. The imperial forces had split after taking Ye, with Jiang Wei pushing east and Guan Xing leading the forces north to accept the surrender of Hebei from Sima Yi directly.

He gathered the materials to write her a return letter.

———

The contact with Sima Yi turned unexpectedly hot as they ended up joining a battle already in progress.

Zhang Bao pulled his horse up next to his cousin, laughing. “What do you think, Anguo? Are we with the besiegers or the defenders?”

“The defenders,” he said, “Look how the besiegers are in a panic, they didn’t know we were coming. The question is what is the motivation of this siege?”

“So what do we do? Messengers?”

Guan Xing had already made a decision. “I don’t want to talk to either of them, I want them all to unconditionally surrender. Beat the drum.”

———

The official surrender of the last Wei capital occurred with two brothers kneeling before Guan Xing.

Sima Yi looked utterly exhausted as he stared at his own hands in his kneeling bow.

His younger brother, Sima Fu, who had been leading the siege against him, knelt only because he had been forced into the kneel. His chains rattled as he shifted, sending a look of utter contempt at his brother.

“The situation is not quite as I expected,” Guan Xing said mildly, “but I suppose the same is true for both of you.”

“Don’t humiliate me further by making me watch my traitorous brother crawl for your pleasure,” Sima Fu said. “Kill me and have done with it.”

Guan Xing considered this a moment, then pulled out his blade.

Sima Yi closed his eyes as Guan Xing severed his brother’s head from his shoulders, but when Guan Xing stepped back and began to clean the weapon, he reopened them, and did not glance at the two pieces of the corpse. “I have tried, my lord, to keep to the terms I was offered.”

“So it seems,” said Guan Xing. “If I can put your mind at ease, the deal is still on. Your children were well when I saw them, and have been sent to their new homes without any trouble. Your younger son has been sent to Jianye, and your elder to Luoyang. The prime minister intends to keep your older son in his own home, I believe; I do not know who Wu intends to raise the younger, but I am sure the information will come back soon enough.”

“Zhuge Liang intends to raise my son?”

Guan Xing did not miss the anger and surprise in the man’s eyes before Sima Yi recalled himself and quickly returned to staring at his hands.

“I make allowances for the stress you have been under, but the sooner you habituate yourself to addressing things by the proper terms, the better it will be for everyone.”

Sima Yi bowed down lower and said through his teeth, “I thank you for your gracious forbearance, my lord. I am deeply grateful to the prime minister.”

Guan Xing addressed the remaining guards. “I’d like to talk to him alone; stand well away from the door.” 

When they had obeyed, Guan Xing walked over to the desk. “This is yours?”

Sima Yi hesitated. “It was mine, my lord.”

“It still is,” Guan Xing said. “Come and have a seat.”

Sima Yi obeyed, but his face was wary as he watched Guan Xing take the seat across from him.

“Obviously I could not do this if we were being watched,” Guan Xing said, “especially as we have not even gone through the farce of you swearing your worthless loyalty to the emperor, but I have many things to discuss with you and it will be easier for both of us to do so this way. Also, there may be some things which you would only say this way that I may want to hear. I do expect you to speak with respect in your terms, despite this relaxation in postures, but you may say your real thoughts on the persons to whom those terms refer, without worrying that I will have you executed.”

Sima Yi tilted his head. “Is that so, my lord? If I truly may say my real thoughts without reprisal… then I will say that you are nothing like what I expected from the son of Lord Guan Yu.”

“Since my father’s death, I have studied as a disciple of Lord Fa Zheng.”

Sima Yi’s face relaxed, and even smiled a little. “Ah… now I understand why the prime minister sent you to me, my lord.”

Guan Xing smiled back. “Just so. How long was the siege going on?”

“Only a few days. My brother found out, somehow, my secret orders to our cousin, and came here to rescue Cao Rui from me. As Cao Rui was already dead by the time my brother got here, that rendered his struggle against me rather pointless.”

“If Cao Rui was already dead, I am impressed you kept such internal control to resist the siege.”

Sima Yi shrugged. “That was nothing, my lord.”

“For the time being, you will remain here,” Guan Xing said. “When things are more settled, the prime minister will be moving you to You province, to be the first line of defence against the northern barbarians and to maintain good relations with the kingdom of Goguryeo.”

They talked for a long time of the situation in Wei, in particular the probable and possible hold-outs against imperial control.

At the end, Guan Xing said, “What do you want done with your brother’s body?”

“You’re leaving it to me, my lord?”

“Why wouldn’t I? After all, you killed him.”

Sima Yi looked at the severed head for a long moment. “So I did,” he said softly.

———

As had become customary with her, Meng’an skipped the formula for beginning a letter properly and began with what she believed his chief concern: _The doctor says that your child is well, and the birth can be expected in two months._

He sighed. Such wonderful news, in itself… yet from things in the prime minister’s letters, he suspected that rather than bringing to Luoyang, the emperor intended to give him governorship of Bing province.

Such a promotion made sense on many levels… it was his father’s birthplace, and this governorship would be as much a reward for his father’s service to the emperor as an appointment based on Guan Xing's personal merit.

There was also that Guan Xing had taken to hunting down and, under obscure and sometimes only dubiously legal pretexts, having executed anyone who had so much as breathed within the Qinghe brothel where his wife and mother-in-law had suffered. A useful feature of the law, Guan Xing discovered, is that everyone breaks it all the time and always; therefore if one wants to punish someone legally, one merely needs to choose the target and then find his offence.

If he had limited himself to the underclass, this would have probably passed without notice, but Guan Xing also had on his hit list anyone who had ever bought time with his wife, which turned out to include men from all levels of society. When he had closed down the brothel (“closed down” here meaning “executed its pimps and had the street burned to ash on pretence of public health”), he had arranged to pay maintenance discreetly out of his own pocket to two prostitutes who remembered his wife, though he did not tell them that was who she was; merely that she was the daughter of a former Wei, and now imperial officer.

From them he got descriptions of frequent customers who preferred Meng’an… in particular those who were rough with her.

He was rough with them in return. He particularly enjoyed when he could find some pretext under the law for ordering death by slow slicing.

It was likely, he thought, that some of the men the former prostitutes identified were ones that they hated from their own experiences with them. Perhaps some of them had never even touched Meng’an. He didn’t care. All of the deaths had been perfectly legal.

But the emperor was not a fool, and Guan Xing knew that his uncle knew the real reason for this vicious crackdown on the lawbreakers around Qinghe, and wanted to get him away from temptation. That was fine. He had almost run out of people to kill, anyway.

He would have no objection to the appointment if it were not that he could not imagine when he could get his wife back to him, if he received it.

Meng’an’s health and comfort were the insurmountable objection. Would he make her travel such a distance heavily pregnant, or recovering from childbirth? Absolutely he would not.

“My lord, a message from the prime minister.”

———

Meng’an stretched as she awoke from her nap, reaching a hand up to rub her neck, and she heard someone sigh.

Her eyes opened wide and she sat up and stared, disbelieving, at her husband. He was sitting on a chair in the corner of the bedroom, dressed in warm lounging clothes against the January chill.

“Did I wake you?” he said with a smile. “I didn’t want to.”

“My lord… am I dreaming?”

He got up and approached the bed, taking her hand. His hand felt cool and rough. “I thought I would surprise you with my homecoming, but I didn’t mean to shock you.”

To her own dismay she began to cry. “No, it’s just… I didn’t dare to hope to see you… I missed you, my lord!”

Guan Xing swiftly slipped into the bed behind her, embracing her and cradling her in his arms, tenderly kissing the tears that slipped down her cheeks. “I’m sorry. Forgive me, Meng’an?”

“It’s not something to forgive,” she said shakily, “I’m so glad… how long will you stay, my lord?”

“We’ll leave together, when you’re recovered from the birth,” he said. “I’m to become—”

His voice stopped abruptly, and Meng’an realized that he had felt the movement of their child where his hands were resting on the swell of her belly. He had left his mouth hanging open slightly, staring down at his hands on her.

The baby kicked again.

“That’s…” he breathed.

“Your child, yes, my lord,” Meng’an said, her heart full. She had denied to herself that she could possibly be pregnant until the signs were unmistakable; she had been afraid every day that some unseen inner injury to her body would cause her to lose the child. She had been too afraid to let herself feel the wonder and the joy that she saw in Guan Xing’s face. If she could not feel it herself, to see him feel it was almost as good.

He put a hand to the tie of her gown, then stopped. “May I… I promise, I can control myself, I would never hurt the baby, it’s just… I want to see you, I want to _touch_ you, please let me…”

She undid the tie herself, and let him unwrap her and reach behind her to untie the supports for her breasts and belly, sewn with pockets containing warming herbs and spices. He put them carefully to the side and returned his glowing gaze to her bare torso. He made no movement to remove her _xieyi_.

“Your breasts are bigger,” he marvelled, running his hands over them.

She gasped a little as his palms slid over her nipples, already hardened by the chill of the room. “They’re more sensitive than before, I think,” she said, blushing a little as his eyes turned towards her face.

“Are they really,” he said with a little catch in his voice, and then chuckled. “But I said I would control myself, didn’t I…”

Guan Xing slid his hands further down onto the bare skin of her belly itself. “Will it kick again? Does it hurt you when it kicks?”

“Not hurt, exactly… it can be uncomfortable, but… it also means the baby is alive and healthy, so…”

He ran his hands over her stomach tenderly. “How soon does the doctor say?”

“Sometime this month.”

Guan Xing tapped lightly on her belly. “Hey, listen, be kind to your mother, alright? When it’s time to be born, come out nicely and don’t fuss.”

She giggled a little as he sighed, and then pulled her robe closed over her again.

“Thank you. Seeing it with my own eyes… I didn’t appreciate it nearly enough until this moment.”

Meng’an turned in his arms, pulling the robe back open as she did so.

“I said I would control myself,” he said, the catch in his voice back.

“You don’t have to wait… I can please you in other ways, you know I can…”

“I do know you can,” he said, looking at her mouth, and shuddered a little when she licked her lips.

“Then please let me? My lord.”

He let her open his robe, and he was hard already, as she suspected he would be. But he caught her wrist and pulled her close to kiss his lips before she could begin.

“My one and only love,” he whispered when he broke the kiss. “My Meng’an.”

 


	5. Chapter 5

Guan Xing had not been honest with his wife about why he gave her no advance warning he had been given leave to come home before taking up the governorship of Bing province.

The real reason was that he knew if he let his wife know he was coming back, then she would write to her father, and Li Dian would write back insisting that his son be removed from the dangerous influence of his son-in-law immediately.

By not giving her warning as soon as the prime minister let him know of this opportunity, he had delayed that entire process by at least three weeks, and he intended to delay it further, starting with burning the letter his wife had given him to post to her father. It would be lost; who would doubt that a letter could go missing? And she would not realize it until at least a month with no reply referring to the matter came, maybe even longer.

That would put the whole matter beyond her giving birth and avoid distressing her in this crucial time with her inability to reconcile her husband to her father.

His young brother-in-law had taken the death of his mother very badly. Because he had discovered the body, it was impossible to conceal from him that she had died by suicide. The experiences in Qinghe, and especially the initial raid where so much of their family had been killed, had of course been traumatic and frightening for the boy, but in the brothel they had shielded him from the sordid truth to the best of their ability, with the compassionate help of the other women. But he was now getting old enough to understand and to put together the true meanings behind things he hadn’t understood at the time.

“He said if it weren’t for him, we might have been able to run away,” his wife told him in the dark of their bed. “How do I answer that?”

“How did you?”

“I said that I knew that mother only ever wanted us both to be safe and happy, and that she… she was trusting that father and I would keep taking care of him now.”

He wondered if he should tell her that he had killed more of the people connected to the Qinghe brothel, and decided not to. What he did to them wasn’t about comforting her, and it wouldn’t comfort her to know about it; it was about giving them what they deserved for being complicit in her suffering.

“I hope father allows my brother to keep staying with me now that you are back. I hope he will… I know he doesn’t trust you but where would he go? I can’t stand the idea of sending him off to school when he’s still grieving like this…”

“There’s no point in worrying about it when he will probably allow it, for that reason,” Guan Xing reassured her, though he didn’t believe for a moment that Li Dian would even consider allowing it. “Put it out of your mind until you get his reply.”

She nodded against his chest. “You’re right, my lord. It will be so much easier to relax, with you here to manage things…”

He kissed the top of her head. “Try to sleep, Meng’an.”

———

If she died, he did not know what he would do.

Guan Xing had been pacing back and forth for hours and as far as he was concerned he would go all night long, if that was how long it went until he heard that she was recovering well. He had not heard anything otherwise, but then, who would dare to be the unfortunate wretch who told him she was dying?

He stopped in his tracks, struck by a sudden sense of dread. What if she _was_ dying and no one told him out of fear of him? What if she died, and he could have seen her to say goodbye and didn’t get the chance because those _cowards—_

Like a man possessed, he almost ran through his home to get to the wing where she was in labour.

Guan Xing threw open the door. His wife was leaning forward against a wall, panting and naked, with a midwife rubbing her lower back and his sister-in-law Sanniang holding a cup to her lips. His wife didn’t turn, but the others all looked at him with varying expressions of surprise and displeasure.

“Now you just get out of here Xiaobo (brother-in-law)!” Sanniang scolded him. “She needs to concentrate and she needs to relax and she won’t be able to do either if she’s worried about you! No, don’t you even bother looking at him, Saosao! He should be ashamed of himself.”

“She’s alright?” Guan Xing said, his mouth dry. Meng’an was in pain…

Sanniang slammed the cup down and stalked over to him. “Did you not hear me? Get out! This is no place for a fucking _man_ to come in and demand women take care of his feelings like we do the rest of our goddamn lives! You get out and you wait!”

Guan Xing was, legitimately, daunted, but as he let himself be pushed back, he couldn’t help pleading. “But you’d tell me if something was really wrong?”

Unexpectedly, Sanniang laughed at him. “Ha! You’ve gotten yourself into a state because nobody dares bring The Big Bad Duke bad news, right? Well, you can count on me to let you know if you’re _actually_ needed, because I’m not afraid of you, and I’ll prove it: _fuck off.”_

With that crude statement, she shoved him out the door and slammed it in his face.

After staring at the closed door for half a minute, he realized that he would need to apologize to and profusely thank his sister-in-law when this was all over. She was a far better person for Meng’an to have with her for this than he was.

———

When Sanniang did come out to him some hours later, she looked… exasperated.

“You’re _not_ disappointed that it’s a girl, right?” she said, with narrowed eyes. “Because I think your wife thinks you will be.”

“The baby’s healthy? And Meng’an is healthy?”

“Yep.”

“I’ll tell her myself how happy I am,” Guan Xing said. “Why would she think I…?”

“One of the midwives said, ‘Never mind, dear, it’s only the first,’ and I could have kicked her, y’know!” Sanniang said. “I’ve thought for a while that Meng’an’s got it in her head that her getting pregnant at all was, like, a cosmic mistake or whatever, and that it’s impossible for someone _like her_ —and don’t get mad at me, it’s the way that _she_ thinks of herself and you know it—to have lightning strike twice.”

“Where is she now?”

“They’re getting them set up in her room,” she said.

“Can I kick the rest of them out so I can talk to her privately?”

“They’re afraid of you, so they’ll do what you say,” she said with a cheeky grin, “I’m not afraid of you, but I’ll go along with it because I think it’s a good idea.”

———

Her husband entered the room, came up to the bed, regarded his wife and newborn daughter tenderly, and then said the single, firm command, “Out.”

Immediately all the servants were off.

“I need that food!” Meng’an nearly shouted, and Guan Xing stopped the servant who had been fleeing with the bowl still in her hands and relieved her of it.

Meng’an sighed with relief. “Oh, thank heaven. I’m so hungry I could eat my own hand. Please bring that back, my lord.”

Meng’an had been thinking he would give her the bowl, but she wasn’t surprised when he instead sat down where the servant had been and took up the task of spoonfeeding her. He did love to spoil her.

Guan Xing didn’t say anything until she had finished the bowl, and then he merely said, “Do you need more?”

“Not for now, my lord, thank you.”

He put the bowl down and brought the stool closer so he could see better their daughter, who had falling asleep nursing. “She’s so beautiful, Meng’an…” His face turned to hers. “Sanniang said you thought I would be disappointed?”

Meng’an blinked. “She did? But why… oh, I see. I guess she made her own assumption of why I reacted like I did… but I wasn’t thinking of _you_ being disappointed, my lord. I… I was hoping the baby would be a boy because… I’m afraid for what being a girl means in this world.”

She looked down at the tiny baby in her arms, so innocent and vulnerable.

She heard him sigh. “That… is not a concern that I can entirely deny,” he said.

“She is so lovely,” Meng’an said. “If I could only believe that the world would be kind…”

“I will continue to do all I can to ensure that the emperor’s land of benevolence becomes real,” Guan Xing promised.

———

Because intellectual tasks such as reading and writing were forbidden to women sitting the month, Guan Xing had to take up the brush to inform his father-in-law of his wife’s successful delivery of a daughter. A delicate task. He stared at the blank paper for a while, before sighing and simply pouring out his sincere joy at how healthy both seemed and the good predictions of the doctor.

He praised his brother-in-law Li Yuan’s progress on his studies and asked, since they had not received a response to Meng’an’s (destroyed) letter, how things went along the eastern coast.

Meng’an’s destroyed letter had contained all the information about Guan Xing’s upcoming assignment to governor of Bing province. Guan Xing did not repeat it. He merely closed with a hope that his father-in-law would be able to visit them at their “new home”.

“My lord? Master Zhang Bao and his family are here.”

“Stay a moment.” He finished the sealing and addressing, and gestured to it. “Have that taken to be mailed to my father-in-law. Has my wife been informed of our guests?”

“Yes, my lord.”

“Have refreshments made and served to us in the east hall. I want the heat built up higher as well.”

———

“They look cute together, don’t they?” Zhang Bao nudged at Guan Xing with his shoulder. They were seated on one side of the large room together, drinking wine, while across the room, Zhang Bao’s wife Lady Lu Yusheng was letting her curious toddler look from a safe distance at the baby held in Meng’an’s arms. “Ages are about right, too.”

“Weiren, she was born six days ago.”

“Hey, there’s only so many eligible maidens, I figure I gotta get in there early for my boy,” Zhang Bao laughed. “You know the empress is already dead set on her brother’s daughter for the prince, right?”

“We’ll have to see if your boy turns out good enough for my girl,” Guan Xing said, with a sly smile.

Zhang Bao tsked. “Oh, I see, it’s going to be your father all over again.” Seeing that this statement made Guan Xing frown, he hurried on to another subject. “Hey, I wanted to tell you, I had an idea.”

Guan Xing gave Zhang Bao a look.

“I have one or two of them a year, just give it a chance. From what I understand, you cleaned up pretty well in Qinghe.”

“Yes.”

“But I know you. You’re not satisfied.”

The frown deepened. “No.”

“But where do you go from here, right? I’ll prove again how I know you: you’ve probably thought about trying to reform the legal brothels and shut down the illegal ones generally, right? Prevent other girls from going through what she did. But…”

He trailed off, and Guan Xing filled in the objection: “But if I were to lead such an effort, everyone would know it was because of Meng’an… and they would start _talking_ about it again.”

“Which you don’t want, because even you know you can’t kill every person in China. But how about this. I talk to Yusheng; Yusheng talks to her friend Lady Huang; Lady Huang talks to Lady Ma, you know, Zhao Yun’s wife; Lady Ma is friends with the empress and she brings it up to her. The empress takes it up with the emperor, and it’s sufficiently passed through enough chains that nobody will connect it to you or Lady Li.”

Guan Xing considers this. The empress is excitable, eccentric, and bored, and the emperor gives her anything she wants if it’s within ten _li_ of reasonable. That part is alright; it’s the steps along the way. “Lady Huang consults with the prime minister on everything. He’d know it was from me. And if the emperor asked him what he thought—which he would—Lord Zhuge Liang would say it was to placate me. Then they’d both be even more convinced I’m obsessed with my wife to the point of madness.”

“Well, that was my one idea, so you’ll have to wait a few months for the next one… unless you want to ask Yinping to talk to the empress, when she comes. Coming from her…”

“I can’t ask Yinping to do anything for me.” His baby sister was going to be accompanying her husband, the Wu prime minister, on a visit to the imperial capital in three weeks. On an official level, it would be half public pageantry of the tranquil and harmonious relationship between the greater empire and its vassal state of Wu, and half vicious yet smiling hashing out of old sores and new tensions behind closed doors. For Yinping, who was not herself political or diplomatic, it would be merely the long-awaited chance for her to introduce her brothers and friends to her toddler daughter and baby son, and to meet all the children who had been born to her former Shu companions.

“Why not? She’d do it, and she has her own experiences which would make it so people would think it was her idea. And she has connections in Wu. She could get Sun Quan on board through his queen as well.”

“All exactly why I can’t ask her. It would be hypocrisy to seek her aid.”

Zhang Bao shrugged. “I could ask her for you.”

“Cowardice, even worse.”

Zhang Bao laughed and stretched. “It’s your call, man.”

———

For the sake of appearances, when Guan Xing learned that his sister and brother-in-law were to come to the capital, he wrote a message offering for them to stay at his Luoyang residence.

Staggered was not too strong a word for how he felt when, a week before their scheduled arrival, he got a message that Lord Lu Xun gratefully accepted his brother-in-law’s gracious invitation.

He laid with his head in Meng’an’s lap while the baby was sleeping and poured out the whole sordid mess of how despicably he had acted towards his sister when she came to Chengdu, and how he had not even apologized. Yinping, sweet and all-loving, had forgiven him anyway; her husband, however, had not.

“Nor should he,” he said, “if someone ever dared say even one of the things I said to her towards you…”

“You would kill him,” Meng’an filled in, lightly stroking his hair.

“What does he mean by coming here? Can he really intend to kill me in my own house?”

“My lord, I don’t know any of these people.”

Guan Xing rubbed his head more firmly against her hand like a fussy cat. “I know. I’m talking to myself, I guess.”

Gazing up at her face, he could see that it was contemplative. “You wouldn’t kill someone if you knew that their death would make me deeply unhappy, even if you thought they deserved death.”

Guan Xing laughed ruefully. “I guess I’m safe, then, since Yinping inexplicably still loves me.”

“For myself, I’m glad they’re staying here; she sounds lovely. And Lord Lu Xun will surely be extremely busy? He won’t be around as much as you might think, and if he has my lord’s intelligence, the two of you can play the game for the month or so that he is here.”

Guan Xing grumbled and nuzzled into her again.

Meng’an laughed. “I have to say, the smell isn’t bothering you? It bothers me, and it _is_ me.”

As the strict rules of sitting the month declared, Meng’an had not washed any part of her body since just before giving birth.

“I’ve smelled worse.” Rotting corpses and infected wounds and…

“I’m washing when they get here, even if it hasn’t been precisely the full month, I’m warning you now.”

“I can understand that,” he said. “I’ve already made arrangements to receive word of their approach a little in advance.”

“Of course you have.” She clucked, not without affection.

———

Yinping hadn’t changed much in three years, Guan Xing thought as he braced himself against being toppled over by her enthusiastic embrace. Neither had the pressed smile with murder behind the eyes of her Wu husband. A little girl at his legs was looking worriedly from her father’s face to the strangers at the door, while behind them, a nursemaid held a sleeping baby of about one year of age.

Guan Xing stroked Yinping’s hair affectionately, trying to ignore the twist in his gut. “Welcome. It’s good to see you.”

“I’ve missed you, Er Ge,” she said, joyously, and turned to Meng’an. “And you must be my new sister! I am so sorry that I could not come to your wedding.”

“Oh, not at all,” said Meng’an. “I am only glad that travel is safe enough now.”

“Boyan!” Yinping called to her husband, then stopped, tapping a finger on her chin. “Wait, who introduces who?”

Lu Xun approached, his daughter cautiously allowing herself to be led. “I don’t think your brother lets etiquette hamper him, darling,” he said.

The dig at Guan Xing went over Yinping’s head entirely, but Guan Xing himself did not miss it. Yinping laughed. “Of course, we’re family! Saosao, this is my husband, Lord Lu Xun—” He bowed correctly—“and my daughter, Lu Ruofeng… we call her Little Mouse… and my son Lu Zhu…” She waved towards the nursemaid. “We call him Tadpole. Little Mouse, can you say hello to Jiujiu and Jiuma (uncle and auntie)?”

“Hello,” said Little Mouse, and then buried her face in her father’s pant leg.

“I thought you might be hungry,” Meng’an said, taking a little plum cake from her sleeve. “I have something for you.”

Little Mouse peeked out again, checked with her mother, and accepted the treat with a shy smile. “Thank you Jiuma.”

“Our daughter is asleep,” said Guan Xing. “We call her Feifei. Xiao Ge is coming with his family for dinner.”

“Oh! That’s wonderful! We’ll all be together again! Boyan, isn’t that great?”

“Certainly, I’ll be glad to see him.” _Unlike you,_ his eyes added.

Guan Xing groaned internally. So his brother-in-law was going to remind him how terrible he was at every possible opportunity, huh? This would be a pleasant few weeks… “Well, please, come in, let me show you where you’ll be staying… would you like a rest, a wash, something to eat…?”

———

Meng’an gasped and keened again as her orgasm approached. Guan Xing was lying half on top of her, his mouth kissing now behind her ear as his fingers continued to work her clit. His hard cock was rubbing gently on her thigh as he brought her to her peak.

As she lay in the afterglow, his fingers drifted slowly down to barely touch her entrance. “You’re sure you’re ready? The doctor said you tore…”

“Only a little bit,” she assured him. “I’ve always told you when it was uncomfortable before, haven’t I?”

He shifted over her, then hesitated. “I… would you like to be on top?”

She smiled, and decided to tease him a little. “Alright, but if I get tired, I may make you switch.”

It didn’t take him long to come with a shuddery little gasp of her name as his hands caressed her breasts.

“Your brother-in-law… is very good with words,” she said as Guan Xing pulled the blanket over them. “Do you think your sister even realizes what he’s doing?”

“He knows how to word his insults around her so that she will not,” he answered tiredly. “I have tried three times to apologize, and he has prevented me every time. He wants me punished rather than forgiven, I think.”

“Yet he does not seem an unreasonable man.” Meng’an sighed. “There must be some way to reconcile the two of you.”

“Let’s go to sleep,” he said, but in his mind he was thinking of the one he always consulted now when he didn’t know the solution.

———

“Oh! Lord Guan Xing,” said Lady Huang as he entered Lord Fa Zheng’s study. He paused in the doorway, a bit startled himself, because Lady Pan had not informed him that his master already had a visitor. “Your wife just had a daughter, yes?”

“Good morning, Lady Huang,” he said with a bow. “Yes, she did.”

“Congratulations, and do you think I could use her in an experiment?” Lady Huang said. “It is not deadly.”

Guan Xing stared at her.

Lord Fa Zheng laughed. “My dear Lady Huang, you are an original. My lord, you can refuse her as flatly as you like; she won’t be offended.”

“Then no,” said Guan Xing.

Lady Huang frowned, but nodded. “Finding subjects for this has been more difficult than I anticipated,” she said. “I may have to pay, I think.”

“You will have to pay less if you describe the experiment as ‘harmless’ rather than merely ‘not deadly,’” Lord Fa Zheng said, then to Guan Xing, “Have a seat.”

“I don’t like to make a positive assertion without proof,” Lady Huang said, her frown deepening. “I could say ‘no recorded evidence of physical harm’, perhaps.”

“You are fortunate that your husband allows you free rein on his purse,” Lord Fa Zheng said. “What is the military application of the testing of gecko sand, anyway?”

“I was able to argue that it is a concern of the government, since the gecko sand test of virginity is frequently submitted in court as a basis to break betrothals without penalty; if, as I theorize and my preliminary evidence suggests, the method is completely worthless, then it must be rejected as evidence. I have used myself as a subject twenty times so far; the test claimed I was still a virgin five times out of twenty.”

“Proof enough by itself, is it not?”

“But it is more important to demonstrate how often the test falsely claims that a virgin is not a virgin,” she said. “That is why I wish to repeat the experiment on some female infants. That, I think, will be conclusive.”

Guan Xing was still standing in the doorway. “Lady Pan did not inform me that you had a guest. I can come back another time…”

“She’s jealous,” Lord Fa Zheng said, looking pleased. “I leave the door open when Lady Huang visits so that she can spy upon us as she wishes, but she doesn’t have that in her. However, setting you upon me unannounced shows a certain amount of at least spontaneous daring on her part. I shall have to reassure her of my appreciation.”

“Jealous?” Lady Huang looked back and forth from Guan Xing to Lord Fa Zheng. “Jealous?”

“You are very beautiful and intelligent, after all.” Lord Fa Zheng sipped his wine.

Lady Huang stood up, looking incensed. “That’s not the point. I am the wife of Lord Zhuge Liang! If your wife thinks I would rather have you, she is mad!”

“Do not distress yourself,” Lord Fa Zheng said calmly. “It is my admiration that she covets, without regard to your response to it.”

Lady Huang was not mollified. “Then she should try to make herself more admirable. Ridiculous woman.”

“She is very foolish where I am concerned, but I like that about her.”

She huffed. “I will go and work upon my new arbalest design. Goodbye, my lords.”

With that, she brushed past the bowing Guan Xing to exit, and he came in and took her vacated seat. “I apologize if I cut short your time with Lady Huang.”

He waved that away. “It was a social visit only. She is excellent company. You would do well to take the opportunity to further your acquaintance with her, if the chance arises. I hope very much that their son takes after her instead of him. Now, you know how I long to help you.”

Guan Xing laughed a little. “I wonder if you have faced this particular kind of challenge… there is a man that I wish to reconcile with, who has good cause to hate me. I cannot change what has happened in the past, nor do I think him likely to accept any apology offered. Is it as impossible as I think, or am I missing something?”

“It is not a challenge I have faced often.” Lord Fa Zheng smiled. “You know my deplorable curiosity burns within me.”

“My brother-in-law, Lord Lu Xun,” Guan Xing said with a sigh.

“Ah.” Lord Fa Zheng shifted forward slightly. “A worthy opponent, that one… yes… you need not fill in the details, I can fill them in myself… and as you have so often warned me, it is a sensitive area for you…”

Guan Xing flushed a little.

Lord Fa Zheng lifted his hands with a lightly mocking gesture of calming. “As you said, you cannot change what happened in the past! So! To move forward… there is nothing so uniting as a mutual enemy.”

“Who would be a mutual enemy of ours?”

Lord Fa Zheng shifted even farther forward, and Guan Xing saw the inhuman delight flickering behind his eyes. “Shall I flush one out for you?”

“What do you mean?”

“You have all of Luoyang terrified into silence as it stands,” his master said, holding his gaze, “but only public silence. As for southerners, I need not tell you how widely unpopular they are here. And how do people vent their hatred and their resentment and their spite? Among lesser men, it is often upon the women they view as incarnating the bonds they despise. In this case, that means not only the empress, but also your sister. What’s more, Lady Guan’s reputation also now bears the calumnies of those who are too cowardly to openly oppose her brother the duke.”

“You have my full attention,” Guan Xing said, and shifted forward himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Gecko sand" was an alchemical test of virginity that involved feeding a gecko poisonous red minerals, grinding the now red gecko into powder, and then placing that powder onto a woman's skin to see if it changed colour. As you'd expect, it was not actually an accurate test.


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